The Toxicity of Sea Air

I don't know whether I should write this or not, but another week has passed when another name known to me has reached the headlines. No, I cannot claim any association to Joey Essex or Steve Davis - this is another priest arrested for offenses against children, known to me personally, who practiced his ministry in the town where I lived and in the parish where a significant number of my own family lived until recently. 

I am fast running out of fingers to count the names of men that I know who have been arrested, charged or convicted for offenses against children - children that are about the same age as I was, and I must confess that each new "story" is another significant blow. 

I write as one who is familiar with this issue, though you will forgive me if I don't (can't) go into specifics. I find myself wondering what it is about Eastbourne that attracts the kind of priest that seem so keen on those who are too small, weak and innocent to defend themselves against those who come armed with the significant power-armour of a minister of religion. Where does a youngster go to find the words to explain that one he trusted undertook acts of such unutterable degradation upon their tender frames? Who would ever believe them? Surely not him? That kid was always trouble, after all. 

I write this post as one who approaches it with a sense of profound sadness. I am realistic enough to know that in every barrel of apples there are one or two that are on the mushy side, but why the barrel that existed in and around my neighbourhood? Why does it seem that half of the sodding thing was steeped in mould? I feel like every one (beyond my blessed family) that I have ever trusted or looked up to is in fact a monster. It makes me feel sad at times to be a priest, more often sad to be an Anglo-Catholic, and daily saddened that my faith and vocation were expressed and explored in this toxic sea air. 

All praise to +Martin, though. The Bishop of Chichester is doing much to repair the damage caused by these toxic tsunamis, even within the midst of evidence that emerges afresh with every single passing week. 

I wrote a post some time ago about being a child of Chichester - a post that was in many ways the sand into which I placed my greying head. It was a post of half-truths and a healthy amount of self-denial, because I have struggled to come to terms with the fact that so many men who have actively nurtured my faith and calling have hands that would cause unutterable pain to children. I look back upon a church-centred childhood and I wonder. Was he? Were they? To tell you the truth, I don't know which way is up any more and that makes me feel afraid. I extrapolate my Eastbourne life onto my wider existence and I am fearful that I am starting to see shadows everywhere, or that I am a shadow in the making and that I just don't know it. Most of all I want to go back to those days when I was a teenager in Eastbourne when so many of my peers were being gently destroyed, and beg it to stop. Oh for the power of hindsight. 

Where Abuse is Shielded by Love

You may remember me writing some time ago about my life in the Diocese of Chichester, where I was a worshipping child during the heady days of the 1980s and 90s in Eastbourne. You will also know that Eastbourne has been exposed as something of the epicentre of abuse by priests, a number of whom have been charged and prosecuted for the sexual abuse of the children in their pastoral care. Names like Roy Cotton, Robert Coles and Gordon Ridoubt are names in the public domain and are the names of people known to me throughout my own childhood. Other names will eventually become known and I know them too. 

I was reminded yesterday something of the dangers that exist in church life as this matter and the wider debate was discussed at a meeting I attended. It is the case, for all sorts of laudable reasons that for many Christians this is to be dealt with in a pastoral way. By that I mean that in receiving the testimony of an abuse victim, who may or may not wish to disclose that abuse to the statutory authorities, a priest has not passed on the knowledge of either recent or historic abuse allegations to anyone else. This is matched by a fervent desire to walk with the victim and not to add further pressure to them by making a disclosure. 

Sadly, such love is devastatingly dangerous. It is true to say that sex offenders act compulsively and often habitually and a statistic was cited by an expert yesterday that an offender, when caught, is likely to have offended in excess of a hundred times, and that unless stopped, is likely to re-offend in the future. The implication, therefore, of taking a pastoral view with a victim is that the abuser is spared legal process, kept away from therapy, and is allowed by lack of prevention and the secrecy engendered by the shame of sexual abuse to continue. It seems that this is symptomatic of the way such matters were dealt with in Eastbourne and wider afield. Greater love hath no (wo)man than to prevent abuse. 

Questions such as the seal of confession also play into this debate that is now acute. The abuser and victim of sexual abuse experience shame and for opposite reasons seek to hide the fact of their abuse (given or taken) from others. Indeed, it is also the case that the average time from abuse to disclosure is 23 years! 

Until recently, I will confess that I wondered why people left it so long to disclose abuse. Cases like Jimmy Savile have created a new culture of honesty and bravery among historical victims, and so it is that many clergy will start to receive disclosures from victims, often wrapped up in terms of not wanting their secret disclosed. As soon as the disclosure is silenced in love, the abuser walks free from justice or indeed from help. If you are a clergy person (or anyone else) who is approached by an abuse victim, please tell someone as soon as you can. Better to betray the wish of a victim couched in their sense of shame than to discover that in so doing, another victim was created. 

As a Child of Chichester

From my safe haven beneath the flight-paths leading to and from Heathrow airport, I have been watching with interest (if that is the right word) the developments in the Diocese of Chichester. The reason for my interest: I grew up in Eastbourne and half of my primary school mates went to Bishop Bell School (you know, the school with the maths teacher who offers one-on-one French Exchange trips for Year 10 students). Added to this, my nieces and nephews still attend that school and my own Much Revered Muvva is on its Board of Governors. (I didn't go there because in 1983 the place was perceived by many parents at the time as a dump and French Exchanges involved linguistic work)

You have Bishop Bell School, then you have the wider issues surrounding conduct towards children by priests who lived in or around Eastbourne while I was there and a Diocese now under the scrutiny of an Archepiscopal Visitation (a bit like being on Report at school, only with mitres and police involvement and fair bit worse for all concerned). They are, in greater part, prodding around in the undergrowth of the Sussexes in the wake of Frs Ridout and Coles, both of whom I knew (and neither of whom came within a mile of me, for the record). There are also ongoing investigations into the alleged behaviour of the former Bishop of Lewes, Peter Ball. I have known Peter Ball since I have was a child and am in no way a victim to what he is accused of - and indeed, he is why I am here as priest. I can, of course, speak only for myself and of my own experiences.

Yes, there is some nasty stuff happening out there and that has happened for years, and it seems in all walks of life. One only need reflect on the developing saga of Jim'll Fix It and one Sir Savile  It is now a daily occurrence that dozens of people are adding their testimonies to the panoply that have already surfaced, begging the question 'why only now'? The evidence and volume of witnesses paints the account in a way that would be hard to deny its truth, but why did so many people remain silent for so long in the wake of manifestly illegal and inappropriate treatment? The same can be said of those who were allegedly abused by priests. Fr Ridout is facing down allegations and charges that at their most recent are forty years old. 

Of course, it is quite wrong to blame victims for bottling it all up and we cannot level accusation at them for not coming forward sooner. The situations in Chichester and indeed within the BBC highlight something altogether more worrying (if anything can be more worrying than predatory sexual abusers in positions of trust) - that in our civilised society, connected by every means of communication possible, in an apparently enlightened age, why it is that so many genuine victims feel that they cannot speak of the attacks upon them. There is more of a lesson in this for the Church than simply how it is we can protect the vulnerable from the predator - but more in how can we enable victims to speak out and seek help, in a way that bypasses the invented and pernicious and protects those in harms way. It is no longer sufficient to say "why didn't you tell us sooner"?

For absolute clarity, my decades in the diocese of Chichester, and specifically in Eastbourne, were happy and affirming. I grew up among some wonderful priests and people and was the beneficiary of some experiences that informed nurtured and confirmed by sense of calling to the priesthood. I have never been a victim to any sort of behaviour mentioned in the press while I acknowledge others very possibly were. I have much to be grateful to Chichester for and I pray earnestly that all those who have been damaged by those in positions of trust will find their peace and healing in God.