The Crisis of the Children

                          by Kenneth Bagnell

      This column requires a special introductory paragraph so please stay with me a few minutes. As most of you know, I’m both a journalist and a minister having practiced both vocations almost from youth. Over the years, for reasons that don’t matter here, I took an early interest in bereavement issues.  Hence now and then, I’m asked to conduct a funeral at a nearby Toronto funeral home. If the weather is reasonable, I walk to it through a very, very busy Toronto intersection, Yonge and Eglinton. That brings me the point: I am, as a minister, rather traditional as many of my United Church classmates of years ago. Hence, I wear the clerical collar whether I deliver a sermon at a church or a service at nearby Morley Bedford Funeral Home.   As I walk there I pass many elderly ladies some on on canes or walkers.  Often they see me coming and smile as they say: “Hello Father.” My question?  How do these elderly women — so obviously dedicated to their faith and clergy for many years — cope with an ugly issue widely known for years, but especially by the latest dreadful revelation.     

     A month or more ago, one of the most shocking official inquiries in history released a finding on child sexual abuse in Australia. For many devout Catholics, it must be dreadful. The abusers, hundreds of them, are priests.  It’s got to be a huge heartbreak for devout Catholics.  Nonetheless, all practicing Christians ought to know about it and ponder its aspects, including its consequences. Hence here’s a brief summation of the official inquiry by: “The Australian Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse by Clergy of the Catholic Church…”  The inquiry reveals (1) that between 1950 and 2009, Australian priests were accused of  4,444, incidents of sexual abuse of children; (2) it states that the Church was unwilling to investigate the reported abuse, actually assisting in “covering up the incidents,” after they were reported. (3)  the senior lawyer told this to the inquiry:  “Children were ignored or worse — punished. Allegations were not investigated. Priests were moved. The parishes to which they were moved knew nothing of their past. Documents were not kept or were destroyed.” This must be horrific and heartbreaking for the elderly and faithful ladies who smile and call me “Father.”  I can’t imagine how hurtful this is to them and to millions upon millions of other devout Catholic men and women.

      This, sad to say, is by no means just a Catholic matter. It’s so serious that the world, especially the Christian world, should know of it. After all, it’s damaging the Christian church and deeply wounding the credibility of the many fine priests who don’t deserve it. Please don’t put the blame on “the media.”  Its role is justified, especially given these needed revelations.

      For now, one memory on this issue has stayed with me for life. It was made years ago by a now deceased Dalhousie University professor of psychiatry, Dr. Fraser Nicholson, who was also a member of the United Church. Back then, he gave a weekly lecture to us at our theological college, then known as Pine Hill Divinity Hall. One day he touched on this issue and one sentence remains vivid in memory: “If any of you guys ever know of a child being abused, you’d better take action right away. Why? Because one incident a child may survive. But one more than that and his life is damaged forever.”  

       I don’t enjoy saying this but this is a fact: the dreadful record of the priestly abuse has clearly not been addressed.  In fact, a reputable American Law School has reported that in the United States alone, between 1950 and 2002, “thousands of children have been abused by Catholic clergy.” Books are written on it, including the widely respected Sex, Priests and Secret Codes by Father Thomas Doyle. Yet, the church has not found a way to keep pedophiles from ordination. I’m certain that Pope Francis is truly in profound concern.  

      Thus Cardinal George Pell, a senior Vatican advisor, told the Australian courtroom last year: “I’m not here to defend the indefensible.” Not long ago, he spoke a full four hours by radio to the deeply wounded Australian Catholics including survivors who are now damaged adults just as Fraser Nicholson said they’d be.  In essence Cardinal Pell said this: the church had “mucked things up and let people down….” He went on to add that the recent Australian revelation was “a catastrophe for the church”.   It gets even stronger: one Catholic layman, was so deeply wounded he called his own church, based on the evidence “an evil institution demonstrated by how it shuffled problem priests instead of taking them out of the system.” I make here one important comment: let’s remember that there are very faithful men in the priesthood, not so inclined but bearing the burden caused by others. Over the years, and being a minister-journalist, I’ve come to know a fair number of Catholic clergy. I’ll never forget a sentence from one elderly priest from eastern Canada:  “Ah, it’s a lonely calling, celibacy and all, especially when we come from large families.” Could this be a possible contributor?

    Finally, is there a plausible answer? We don’t really know cause or cure. A respected Toronto psychologist, Dr. James Cantor, of U of T’s Faculty of Medicine, has done much research and concludes it’s inborn, though others differ thereby making it doubtful that sexually abused children can be truly “cured.” Still some specialists urge that abused children be treated by psychiatry — a well meant intention which might work. At present Australia’s government is pressed to compensate each child victim to the extent of $150,000 which is well intended but far from enough. In fact, up to now, a million dollars each is not enough as my now deceased friend, Psychiatrist Fraser Nicholson, told us at  Halifax’s Pine Hill Divinity Hall some sixty years ago.

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