AFTER POPE FRANCIS' VISIT

The recent visit of Pope Francis to Ireland was celebrated before, during and after, by protests, appeals, condemnations, and disapproval such as we Oldies never saw offered to a Pope in our lifetime.

These ranged from street demonstrations with condemnatory placards to friendly advice and dignified appeals from Jude Collins and Father Paddy Mc Cafferty. On one hand honour and ceremonial acceptance, on the other rebuke and disapproval sometimes verbal abuse.

And yet....

And yet Pope Francis was the very first Pope we ever had who not only called for revolutionary change in his church but showed many signs of being willing to make it happen. It was  like a great dramatic tragedy in which the ills and hurts of the past are heaped on the head of the least guilty. Pope Francis may be the tragic pope, willing but not able, recognised after he is gone.  In that case those who offered Francis  a dignified rebuke and their promise to help him will be shown to be right and thanked for it. The Chief surrounded by  cries of Yes in front and murmurings of No behind- backs,  a leader besieged by both friends and colleagues needs all the help he can get.

There have always been times like this in his Church, great international arguments about policy and teaching sometimes  tearing the church apart, sometimes soothed by wise spirits who knew the church would never be without conflict inside and out.

The present upheaval was not  caused by sexual scandal alone. At  times the Church has been riven with sexual scandal - Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (fourteenth century)  show what kind of  scandals hurt the Faithful in his day. There were times when sexual abuse of children was not considered a major offence by church or state.  There were times in Ireland when even a weakened people would  protest with Dan O Connell, "We take our religion from Rome, our politics from Home"  and still keep intact the line of communication between Irish people and Roman pope. History can be a cruel but helpful teacher. So what has happened in the past can happen again.  Is Francis earthy enough to brighten once again the Vision of Christianity even as the numbers  interested in  the Vision become smaller? 

I think he is. But if the present rage is not caused only by the abuse of children let us say honestly that abuse of children has been tolerated for a very long  time.  And covered up for a very long time. People did not take it as seriously as the abuse of older people;  and the cost of revealing it was too heavy  in family shame, institutional disgrace, or in the revenge of those who have exploited  people of any age for profit. It will take a long time to change that situation, in church, state, family or wherever, because although we now insist on  knowing where it  occurs we do not recognise yet how deeply rooted in a human mind it can be.

Nowadays revealing  secrets has become part of our new culture. Investigative journalism is part of the new culture.  Reality film and television show pictures of childbirth, extreme mental distress, death, as closely as entertainers may dare to show it. We used to hide many harsh facts of real life for the sake of not offending, we softened  them in speech through respect or respectability,  we even had words we never uttered  because of delicacy or discretion. But the hurting reality of a harsh world  we tried to make less fearful remained. And even this new culture of revelation still allowed  respectable, discreet silence to save careers, institutions, fortunes. Our new culture of revealing  everything  did not include everything after all.

 That so much  anger has been expressed in Ireland may give the impression that abuse of children is a specially Irish problem, or a specially church problem or a specially  Irish church problem. It is none of these, it is a worldwide problem. A study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2004 showed that the occurrence of child molestation or abuse was around 2 % of clergy  generally and this was  an international figure.  Such a figure enrages people  because they expect very different behaviour from clergy and because their children are exposed to this ill-treatment by men or women whom they trusted most.

There is a huge demand for exposing and punishing those who are guilty. But that  could make offenders more cautious while  reassuring parents that "we will make sure that such things do not happen again".  The problem is so deeply rooted  that it will not be disposed of by that alone,  no matter how strong punishment and rules of behaviour may be made and even enforced.

Shifting clergy offenders from place to place in the church was not just a random careless gesture - it was based upon the church's  belief in "the occasions of sin".  This was the belief that a usually subdued inclination to do  wrong can be triggered off by the presence of something or someone  who, knowingly or not,  stimulates it. The  frequent sight of unguarded money might stimulate a normally honest person to steal, the frequent presence of a specially attractive person might stimulate a desire for personal contact. So, innocent persons or harmless  things become what the moralists called "occasions of sin".  Naturally it was thought that removing  a person from the  "temptation"  would solve the problem.  Hence removal of clergy from one place to another. But the deep desire now  active may be too deep for that.  Increasing modern knowledge of an age-old problem has  changed people's minds about this way of solving a problem. It may solve a problem of unguarded cash but it does not solve  a problem of abuse. Cash boxes don't have sexual attractiveness. One of the greatest causes of anger is that those in authority did not act when they found their "remedy" did not work, even when accompanied by  therapy or sympathetic watchfulness.

This underlines  how subtle and complicated the problem of persons abusing persons  really is, and why anger and retribution are not enough.  A problem so subtle and complicated that  it cries out for worldwide  research using all the knowledge and skills we possess , beginning with those of loving parents  teaching their children how to be the first line of their own defence, no matter what successes or failures or betrayals the rest of the world has to offer. Parents are the first - and generally the best - educators of their own children.

And safety, like charity, begins at home.