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	Taking Refuge behind a Clerical Role By Tony Bates Irish Times December 8, 2009 http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2009/1208/1224260292105.html IRELAND -- MIND MOVES: In a priest's attempt to hide his anxiety and uneasiness from his congregation, he also hid his humanity ON A cold rain-swept Sunday morning the homilist stepped up to the lectern to deliver his few words. The small chapel was packed and the congregation was hushed and expectant. It was the first Sunday of Advent, but, more to the point, it was the first Sunday after the release of the Murphy report. He warmly thanked the assembled for taking the trouble to be there. If ever there was a morning for staying under one's duvet, this was it. But they had come because it was important for them. And because they wanted to hear how this man would comment on the horrific behaviour of members of the clerical fraternity whom he now represented. Clearly he was uncomfortable. Child sexual abuse is a sensitive issue. But when you are addressing perfectly innocent people who had no hand, act or part in it, and you are standing there as a member of the cabal that spawned and protected some of this country's worst offenders, it's particularly hard. And this was where he made his first mistake; rather than standing before his community as one of them and admitting that this was indeed a painful moment for them and for him, he detached himself and took refuge behind his role. In his attempt to hide his anxiety and uneasiness from them, he also hid his humanity. At a moment when people needed a palpable connection with someone they trusted, someone who would validate and share their hurt and their outrage, he failed to show up. What he said to them was mostly appropriate and sincere, but at times his remarks bordered on the glib, and sometimes communicated an unintended undercurrent of despair. He wrapped the horror of clerical sex abuse into recent hardships caused by flooding and unemployment. A woman beside me began to cry. He spoke of lives being irreparably destroyed by what had happened. While at least this remark validated the gravity of the situation, it subtly condemned victims to a life of misery. Despite his insensitivities, I doubted neither this man's sincerity nor his courage in confronting this painful issue. After mass, I sent word to him that I had some concerns about his homily and offered to discuss these with him. We spent the afternoon talking about sexual abuse as the rain poured down outside. He was very gracious and open about how little he really knew. He asked many questions and listened. He later made a point of speaking to the lady who had become distressed during his homily and apologised to her. This priest's lack of understanding was a product of much larger ignorance and denial that was rampant in 20th-century Ireland. At the very beginning of that century, Freud refused to consider that the accounts of abuse given to him by his patients had actually happened. He could not bear to acknowledge that such horrors could occur, because for him this would have implied a betrayal of fatherhood. So he proposed that memories of abuse were merely a manifestation in fantasy of the child's desire to be close. In our course textbook in undergraduate psychology (1979 edition), child sexual abuse was not mentioned. I remember listening to an eminent consultant psychiatrist in 1992 as he complained angrily about the "obsession with sexual abuse" that seemed to have taken hold of the country. He said, no doubt with complete sincerity, that in 30 years of clinical practice with psychiatric patients he had "never once" come across someone who had been sexually abused. This is not to say that people who abused were not accountable for the hurt they inflicted. But there was a wider cultural context of denial and ignorance that allowed people with power and influence over children to act out their twisted passions in destructive ways. As horrific as recent revelations have been, they have created an opportunity for conversations to emerge that historically have never happened before. Maybe now we can finally speak to one another with some honesty about how hard we have found it to acknowledge the dark side of our human personality, particularly the damage we do to ourselves and others when we deny it. I was very moved by this priest's humility and by his willingness to learn and change. We need a lot more of this kind of conversation, so that we don't become bogged down in blame and reprisal. Now at least we're talking about it. We're facing the truth and we've stopped accusing each other of dreaming the whole thing up. We're growing up. This has to be a good sign. Tony Bates is founding director of Headstrong – The National Centre for Youth Mental Health (www.headstrong.ie)
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