Who’s abusing whom?

The news of the arraignment in court of a well-known and highly-respected educator and senior member of the MUSEUM, who has been charged with the heinous crime of child sexual abuse, has shocked a nation.

Not in the usual way, however: while people usually tend to react to news of this kind by calling down divine retribution in the form of fire and brimstone upon the alleged miscreant, at whom bagfuls of choice epithets are hurled with abandon, this time the online newspapers’ comments boards were replete with forceful expressions of solidarity with the accused man.

The reasons for the outcry are known: the person concerned is, by all accounts, a paragon of integrity and has dedicated his entire life to the education of the young in both the professional and voluntary sector.

The prosecution’s case rests solely on the account of the “victim” – a 10-year-old boy. The alleged incident happened in a public setting, in the full view of several other people. The mechanics of the incident, as described by the supposed victim himself, lend themselves very readily to the conclusion that nothing more sinister than an accidental contact occurred.

In the view of most of those who put fingers to keyboard, the arraignment of this gentleman was unseemly, unwise and utterly unjust. Until just hours ago, five full days after his arraignment, he was still languishing in prison.

So, who or what is to blame for the mess this almost certainly innocent man finds himself in? – The investigating police inspector, according to some.

But which police officer, operating within a culture very highly sensitised to the dangers of the sexual abuse of youngsters, would be brave enough to resist the pressure to prosecute when incensed parents press for action? This, especially, when officers who fail to prosecute place themselves in danger of being very severely sanctioned?

Moreover, what would those who are now condemning the police inspector as being high-handed for arraigning the MUSEUM catechist, have said had the police been informed of a case of sexual abuse and had decided not to prosecute? Would not the ensuing reaction have been a cacophony of protestations alleging a cover-up, collusion, a dastardly plot against the vulnerable, involving gross incompetence and crass irresponsibility?

Almost incredibly some have pointed a finger at the boy himself. He’s 10 years old, for God’s sake! Enough said, I think.

The parents? Why would two adults knowingly and deliberately put pressure on their 10-year-old son to come up with or distort a series of events just to crucify an innocent man of blameless reputation, knowing that the boy would have to go through the harrowing experience of being interrogated by the police and testifying in court? The parents must actually believe that the abuse did take place, which by no means can be taken to signify that it actually did occur.

Why have we come to this, many commentators asked. The answer possibly lies in the effect of past incidents of the sexual abuse of minors, particularly those perpetrated by the MSSP religious and which have impressed themselves so forcefully upon the collective consciousness.

The malevolent juxtaposition of perverse, unbridled lust and trusting innocence provokes feelings of anger and distaste which often manifest themselves as aggressive reactions on our part against persons and objects associated with the malefactors – like other religious, the Church hierarchy or even the Christian belief itself – and also as a deep fear which only a sense of shocking betrayal can bring about. It is like a sweeping away of the ground from under our feet, the collapse of hitherto rock-solid edifices we could never have envisaged breaking down.

The effect would be something in the order of a widespread Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder which afflicts those who feel particularly vulnerable, that is parents with young children. The adults, doubtlessly with the intention of protecting their offspring, imbue them with a sense of danger which turns the children into hyper-vigilant beings ever on the alert for marauding wolves in sheep’s clothing – or in clerical garb.

For all we know, they could even be sporting a ”Verbum Dei” on their left jacket-lapel. In these circumstances of heightened alertness to possible danger, the slightest incident can be magnified and transmogrified into a malevolent sexual attack.

In hindsight, what we experienced as a result of the sexual abuse incidents of the recent past was a sort of moral panic which has negatively affected our perception of many aspects of the relationship between children and non-family adults, particularly priests, monks and their fellow-travellers.

Parents are (understandably) afraid and they transmit their anxieties onto their children who, at times, cannot handle their fear of an impending attack and may misinterpret innocuous incidents. In true moral panic mode, pressures are brought to bear on the authorities (for which, in this case, read the police) to act.

Ultimately, all individuals – the parents, the police inspector, the newspaper editors who chose to splash the accused person’s name despite knowing full well that his good name would be tarnished – are responsible for their own actions and answerable to God and to their own consciences for whatever they have chosen to do.

But none of us is immune to the effects of the pressures emanating from that conglomeration of priorities, prejudices and patterned behaviour called culture that we live in. When the pressures feeding on our deepest fears and anxieties are particularly strong, our decisions are never as free as we fondly imagine them to be. Conditioning is a fact of social life.

We, as members of the public who talk, gossip and judge, the journalists who report and prioritise fact, those commentators who analyse and opine, the public officials who take policy decisions and all individuals who succumb to perverse sexual temptation to the detriment of vulnerable others are responsible for the creation of the atmosphere around us which conditions our behaviour.

When we come to realise that something is wrong on that level – and something manifestly is if a man who is almost certainly innocent has had to sleep in a prison cell for five nights – then we are bound to bring about changes.

However, paradoxically – almost perversely – the accused gentleman’s ordeal, on top of a couple of other situations where accusations of sexual abuse have already been quashed by the courts or appear very likely to be eventually dismissed, might spell change.

They may prove to be the catalyst, and just the jolt we need, to change the way we collectively regard and deal with allegations of sexual abuse with the people who are charged with having allegedly committed these crimes – at least until the accused have been proved guilty.