The Evening Standard
May 19 2004
Suspicion cast over all priests
by Karl du Fresne
I took a closer
than usual interest in the case of disgraced former Catholic priest Alan
Woodcock, who pleaded guilty this week to charges of sexual abuse dating back
to the 1970s.
The reason is that I am a former pupil of St Patrick's College, Silverstream, the Marist boys' school where much of Woodcock's known
offending took place.
I spent two very contented years at Silverstream, having been sent there in the
hope that my lacklustre performance during three years at a state
co-educational college might be improved by a dose of boarding school rigour.
It was a turning point in my life. Though Silverstream had a justified
reputation as a school that was almost fanatical about rugby (you virtually had
to be paraplegic to avoid playing), it also valued and nurtured academic and
artistic skills. The late Michael King -- no macho rugby hero -- was one of the
school's many distinguished ex-pupils.
In my time at Silverstream there was never the faintest whiff of improper
behaviour by priests toward pupils. On the contrary, most of the priests were
model teachers, 100 percent committed to their vocation.
One of the saddest aspects of the sexual abuse scandals uncovered in the
Catholic Church in recent years, in fact, is that they cast a shadow of
suspicion over hundreds of priests who have led exemplary lives and must be
sickened by every new case of abuse.
If St Pat's had a fatal flaw, it was that it could be cruel and unsympathetic
to loners and outsiders. Any boy suspected of homosexual inclinations, for
instance, was likely to be subjected to merciless taunting.
In such an environment, it's easy to see how someone like Woodcock could
identify potential victims. Lonely and vulnerable juveniles naturally attract
the attention of paedophiles. Not only are they likely to be grateful for any
friendly interest shown in them, but they are less inclined to seek help when
things turn nasty.
To complain to someone else would deprive them of the one source of apparent
kindness in their lives. To dob
in the abuser would also risk even greater alienation from their fellow pupils,
especially in an environment fiercely intolerant of homosexuality.
I should emphasise here that I don't know whether any of Woodcock's victims
conformed to this pattern. I'm merely suggesting that these conditions make
institutions such as boarding schools fruitful hunting grounds for the
paedophile. Perhaps it's this that attracted Woodcock to the priesthood in the
first place.
In the broader sense, churches in general make an ideal environment for sexual
abusers because it provides ample opportunities to manoeuvre themselves into
positions of power and influence over emotionally vulnerable people. Being
semi-closed institutions with little accountability to the community at large, churches
also offer abusers a degree of shelter.
These characteristics are not confined to the Catholic Church, or to homosexual
abusers. Plenty of heterosexual Protestant clergymen have been exposed for
taking advantage of women who have turned to them for advice or comfort.
Of course, one of the factors that sets the Catholic Church
apart is the celibacy rule governing its clergy. Advocates of reform suggest it
is both unnatural and unhealthy, merely serving to reinforce the church's
appeal to men whose sexual development has been arrested -- in other words,
those who have never progressed beyond a fascination with boys.
Another factor peculiar to Catholicism, and which becomes screamingly obvious
at times like this, is that it's a cloistered institution singularly
ill-equipped to cope with external scrutiny. While it is adept at exercising
internal control, the church has yet to come to grips with the age of
accountability.
In its half-hearted efforts to deal with the shame and scandal in its midst,
the church has fallen wretchedly short. It has been repeatedly caught in
denial, shifting serial abusers from place to place in the vain hope that they
will somehow miraculously cure themselves, and in the process giving them further opportunities to offend.
Often, as in the Woodcock case, the church gives the impression that it is more
concerned with protecting itself than with exposing and expelling the vile
predators in its ranks, acknowledging the huge harm they have done under the
shelter of the church's mantle and dealing honourably with the traumatised
victims.
Even when the church seeks help in its clumsy efforts to minimise the damage,
it screws up. In the case of Woodcock, the church apparently sought the advice
of staunch Catholic layman and former St Pat's pupil Peter Trapski,
a former chief District Court judge and member of the Waitangi Tribunal. But it
seems Mr Trapski's own judgment may have been sadly
clouded by misguided feelings of loyalty to church and school.
His main concern, judging by what has been reported, seems to have been to
minimise the harm to the school. A more detached adviser might have been less
inclined to pussyfoot around.
What happened during the era of Woodcock's predations at Silverstream and
elsewhere in the 1980s is a tragedy that reverberates far beyond the immediate
victims. It has shamed a respected school and disgraced a church which, for all
its faults, has often been a powerful force for good in the world.
The scandal must also have profoundly shaken the faith of Catholicism's many
loyal and honourable followers. But why do I get the unsettling feeling that
the church is still not squarely facing up to the issues?