Suffer the Little Children
“But Jesus called them unto him, and said: Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.”
(Luke 18:16)
Here are two pictures. These two men have something on common.
Can you guess what it is?
I am sure you got it at once. Yes, both are Roman Catholic priests.
One is Father Kaplan Johannes Prassek. He died on 25th June 1943.
To be rather more precise on that day Father Prassek along with another two Catholic priests, Eduard Muleer and Hermann Lange and a Lutheran pastor the Reverend Karl Stellbrink, were executed by the Nazis at Hamburg’s Holstenglacis Prison after a show trial. The were beheaded.
Their crime was to preach against the evil doctrines of the Nazis.
It is reported that they all went to their fate and a composed and even joyful manner, content in their faith and in their ministry in the face of evil. Prassek was a humble man and lived a simple life. So one may say that Father Prasseck was a man of faith, compassion, love, courage and principle.
The other picture is His Eminence Sean Baptiste Brady, the present Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland.
I think he lives in nice house.
Recently BBC’s This World programme exposed ugly secrets about child abuse in the Irish Roman Catholic Church. For those who are minded and have a strong stomach a link to the programme is here.
As for Cardinal Brady, the allegations from the BBC’s This World programme are these:
- That in 1975 the now Cardinal Brady was a priest and teacher in County Cavan in the Republic of Ireland, when he was sent by his bishop as one of a team of three sent to investigate a claim of child sexual abuse by a fellow priest.
- That priest was Father Brendan Smyth, who was later exposed as a child abuser and died in prison in 1997, one month into a 12-year prison sentence for a serial child abuse.
- That in 1975 Brady had discovered what Smyth was up to and had compiled a list of victims.
- That Brady compiled the report into the matter but failed to inform either the parents or the police about what was going on.
- That no effective sanction was taken by the Church against Smyth.
- That Smyth went on to abuse many more children over the next 13 years before finally being exposed and convicted.
Indeed, it seems that child abuse by Catholic priest has been a serious and even endemic problem within the Irish church by “men” such as Smyth, and serial abuser Eugene Greene.
Greene pleaded guilty to 41 sample charges of buggery, gross indecency and indecent assault against 26 schoolboys between 1965 and 1982, and was jailed for 12 years at Donegal Circuit Court in 2000.
In the Diocese of Raphoe, accusations were leveled against 14 priests, with four clerics convicted of abuse. The others were former priest Paul McDaid, Fr Daniel Doherty and his brother Fr John Doherty.
Not quite what Our Lord had in mind I think when he said “suffer the little children…”
Brady has defended himself against calls for his resignation as Cardinal. He has said that regretted some actions during the inquiry but insisted responsibility for the Smyth scandal does not lie with him.
He has also claimed that as a priest supporting the investigation, even under today’s rules which enforce mandatory reporting, he would not have been the person responsible for alerting authorities.
“I took down everything I heard and referred it back to the people who were in a position to act,” he has said.
The Cardinal has also claimed his role in the internal Church inquiry – officially recorded as “note-taker” – had been deliberately exaggerated and misrepresented in the BBC documentary.
I am afraid I found the testimony given in the documentary all too compelling. This included direct testimony about Brady and two other priests interrogating a 14 year old boy about abuse in the absence of his parents, and Brady requiring the boy to sign an oath that he would speak to no one else on the matter. Brady was not a “note taker”. He took notes as part of his leading role in the investigation and reported back to the bishop.
However, it seems no action was taken by those “in a position to act.” And would that not have been known to the now Cardinal Brady? He could perhaps have asked why the matter had not been referred to the police. He might have asked what had been done to make sure that the police were told. He might have wondered why no charges had been leveled by the police.
What, I wonder idly, would Johann Prassek would have done?
If, as is alleged, Brady knew that Smyth was sexually abusing children, and that no steps had been taken to prosecute him, then he must leave his post at once. If that is true he is a poor and pitiful excuse for a prelate. Brady should have been banging on doors, demanding action. Passing it up the food chain and doing nothing is, as we say in these parts “nihil ad rem.” Neither here nor there.
Curiously, Brady’s “career” within the Church “took off” after the investigation in which Brady took part, and which seemingly produced no tangible results to stop Smyth…
There is a clear pattern of institutional cover up not just in these but many other cases. A common pattern emerges of abusive priest being moved from parish to parish.
I call myself a Catholic, but it may be that is more habit than true doctrinal acceptance. I have very many objections to the stance of the Church in so many areas. I hold views about the nature of religion, God, and Our Lord’s teachings and identity which are inimical to official Church doctrine, and which would have got me burned in days of yore. On many social issues I regard the official teachings of the Church as simply wrong. But I find the certainty of the Church’s rituals and the pageantry of the Mass comforting and interpret them for my own benefits. I think there are a lot of Catholics like me. And there are good men and women in and around the Church still.
Like all the ordinary foots soldiers of the Church I know I am horrified and appalled by both the behaviour and what seems to be the clear cover up of serial abusers.
The Church must be cleansed of this evil, and face the facts. The cover up must be exposed. Any and all of those who assisted in the cover up must pay the price of their own sin, just as evil as those who directly perpetrated these acts. Not just in the hereafter, but now.
By Gildas the Monk
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1
May 4, 2012 at 23:38 -
welcome to my world
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May 5, 2012 at 07:39 -
Amen!
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3
May 5, 2012 at 10:32 -
I don’t call myself a catholic, but do wonder if there are any “conspiracy to supress evidence” statutes in Ireland?
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May 5, 2012 at 13:27 -
It has been said that Homosexuals are more likely to be Paedophiles. Personally, I don’t agree with this generalisation. But it is a fact that children who are abused by Catholic Priests are far more likely to be young boys. This leads me to suspect that certain types are more likely to opt for The Catholic Priesthood, if that makes any sense.
If this is the case then much more care should have been taken when admitting young men. The powers that be had plenty of time to observe these young men.
The rule of The Catholic Church is that Priests should be Celibate, although I am not sure of the sense of that. But it is the rule, and freely entered into.But you don’t hear much of a scandal about Priests abusing young girls, or having sex with grown women, although no doubt it happens.
So, as far as I can see this obviously likely occurrence should be address from Day One. Even now today.
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May 5, 2012 at 13:47 -
The quote, “Suffer little children to come unto me,” means “allow”, not “suffer” in the modern sense. I wish people would stop using it in this context. It suggests that they haven’t really read it, and therefore shouldn’t use it to back up their argument.
Personally, I assume that a career in a celibate priesthood will always disproportionally attract young men who are not sexually interested in women. It’s an adequate explanation for the interest in boys more than girls, in priests who later find themselves inclined to paedophilia.
I do completely agree that those who covered up these abuses must be dismissed, if the church wants to retain any respect. But I’m not a member, so they won’t be asking me.
It appears that paedophiles will always exist. They should be kept out of positions of trust with access to children.
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May 6, 2012 at 12:20 -
I agree that the quote is frequently and annoyingly misused; however, Gildas being as literate and erudite as he is, I take his use of it here to refer to the allowing – if not encouraging – of children to work closely with Parish priests.
As I understand it, it has traditionally been boys who served at the altar during mass, whether because it was not seen as appropriate for girls to do so or in the hope that the boy might be called to the priesthood as a result.
I may be wrong, but it is only in very recent times that I have heard of girls filling the role that once belonged solely to altar boys; in addition, I should think any contact between priest and servers is closely scrutinised.
The prestige of having a priest in the family – before this appalling scandal, it was a thing to be proud of – must have ensured a constant supply of parents happy to place their sons in the care of the parish priest for several hours a week in the hope of inspiring a vocation.
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May 5, 2012 at 13:52 -
There is no way that sexual acts with children – or even inappropriate touching – can be condoned by Priests, or by anyone else, for that matter. Whenever such matters are uncovered, they should be investigated properly, and if Priests are found to have abused their position of trust, they should suffer the proper consequences.
That said, there is a germ of doubt in my mind about all this. Some in the media seem to have a very strong anti-religion bias, and tend to make all they can of such stories. The impression given is that all Priests are somehow untrustworthy; this is a culumny on many decent men.
I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I wonder what proportion of convicted child-molesters are Priests, what proportion teachers, what proportion family members, and what proportion relative strangers to the victim? My suspicion is that the majority are people well known to the victim, many of them family members who have suffered similar abuse in their childhood.
I don’t think the Catholic Church has behaved entirely honourably over this matter, but one does wonder how many child abuse victims their may be of people of trust in other religions, for example. The focussing of media attention on just the Catholic Church may not be helping the majority of child abuse victims.
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May 5, 2012 at 14:47 -
Statistics of convicted child sex offenders actually show the largest sub-group of guilty to be the elder siblings of the abused.
Research, however, shows that some young adolescents who realise their attraction to young people at an early age DO make career choices which allow them to have more unrestricted access to young people, such as teachers – and priests.
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10
May 6, 2012 at 09:43
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May 5, 2012 at 15:29 -
I approach this topic as a straight, non-paedophile, atheist – there are so many facets which fall outside my sphere of comprehension.
I am simply unable to see any sexual attraction in children, of either gender. Similarly, I can see no sexual attraction in members of my own gender. I just can’t put myself into the mind-set of anyone who does either of those – it’s just entirely alien to me.
The atheist in me bears suspicions of anyone falling for the ‘sky-pixie’ myths, legends and fairy-tales. That doesn’t make them bad people, but I find it hard to correlate that with their being intelligent individuals. Some of my best friends ‘do God’, and it leaves a gap of comprehension between us.
However, I can understand priests – it’s just a job, no different from that of any double-glazing salesman – they just cynically flog a ‘product’ to a gullible client-base and make a living from it, in some cases a living peppered with power over others, be that as a local priest or as a CofE bishop in the Lords.When those different aspects coincide and religious ‘role models’ use their position for the benefit of sexual congress with children, then they have sunk to perhaps the lowest level life-form on my scale. Brady, by his knowing eye-aversion, should not be given the opportunity to resign – he should have been fired and prosecuted for anything available in the local statute book.
But then, maybe he knows far too much about others, higher in the ecclesiastical food-chain, so he needs to be ‘protected’, lest he blow another, far louder and even more damaging, whistle. What other explanation can there be ? -
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May 5, 2012 at 16:14 -
I must say that I find it difficult to believe that all of these sexual transgressions by Priests only apply to the lower orders. They all start off somewhere at the bottom of the heap.
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May 5, 2012 at 18:31 -
Every cloud has a silver lining. There will be a lot less respect for the church and priests in Ireland, and more atheists.
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May 5, 2012 at 20:30 -
“Well, we’re not all like that, Niamh. Say, if there’s two hundred million priests in the world, and five per cent of them are paedophiles, that’s still only ten million.” (Father Ted)
(I am in Ireland just now and the talk is of little else)
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May 5, 2012 at 22:16 -
It is evident that the Catholic church has been aware of the predilection of many of its priests for young boys and has actively and systematically covered these abuses up over the decades.
Appalling.
There is no overriding sense of shame within the Catholic church that these offences happened and continue to happen and, it appears, no way of forcing the Catholic church to clean up its act. This is because the Pope is the head of the smallest independent state in the world, so there is no authority above him (other than ‘him upstairs’) to bring the necessary pressure to bear.
As the Catholic church is, in so many instances, utterly and inextricably intertwined with the fabric and society of various countries, particularly many emerging countries, there is no way of removing its sometimes malevolent influence and consigning it to the dustin of history.
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May 5, 2012 at 23:39 -
I grew up in 1970′s Ireland and spent 13 years in Catholic run schools. I can honestly say that I never came across one instance of a fellow student casting aspertions on a priest or brother and never once felt ‘odd’ about any encounter with one. My personal experience was that the clerics with authority over me had a genuine calling to educate and encourage their charges. I know that I was probaly lucky that way, but like all the lay teachers I had, the clerics were a mixture of good, bad and indifferent and I have genuine respect, gratitude and admiration for a number of them. I say this as someone who decided at age 12 that I was a confirmed athiest.
I have heard the phrase ‘I’m ashamed to call myself catholic’ more than once in recent years from devout Irish catholics, and personally I find that sad because the (I honestly believe) vast majority of clerics are good hearted people who want to make the world a better place.
There was a line in the film ‘The road to wellville’ by Anthony Hopkins’ character that describes young people as looking to (and I paraphrase) ‘Some wish to find a great love, some to make a great fortune and some to change the world’. That line always struck me, and I think that for the majority of clerics the part about changing the world probably inspires most of them to the life they choose. And even though I am an athiest I can recognise that the imperitive to change the world probably applies to most of tham. I can, of course see that for certain devients, this life is an ideal cover for their proclivites, but we need to be careful not to tarring them all with the same brush.
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May 5, 2012 at 23:49 -
OK, I just checked on IMDB and I misremembered. It was actually Michael Caine in ‘The cider house rules’. How did we manage before teh interwebs, eh?
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May 6, 2012 at 02:21 -
I suppose it is right to highlight these egregious cases, but I cannot help but feel that most people fail to understand who benefits most from the downfall of many formerly praise-worthy institutions-police, school, universities, clergy, politicians, the family, marriage, citizenship.
A cursory study of the communist manifesto would explain much and when I read that the report emanates from the BBC I nod knowingly.
And yet such wickedness as described finds me hoping that the priest suffers the fate he preachs for sinners-in eternal damnation. -
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May 6, 2012 at 09:05 -
I Cascadian, it is damaging to society as a whole when we blame the organisation. These are not crimes of institutions, they are crimes by the perpetrators and their accomplices. Blaming the institutions has been a useful tool for the achievement of many of the objectives of the loony WRP, Trot and Maoist loonies of the seventies and eighties, including the neutering of the police.
And yes ,the BBC has fallen far, in every respect. -
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May 6, 2012 at 09:06 -
oops, I agree cascadian, of course.
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