‘There is no question whatsoever of the basic moral evil underlying all instances of sexual abuse of children. It is a misuse of power and a betrayal of trust on the part of the abuser and it can result in tremendous long-term psychological harm and damage to the victim’ wrote Fr Neil McNicholas in a recent issue of the Yorkshire Post. ‘There are no excuses, no mitigating circumstances. Children should be, and must be, completely safe and totally protected, and those who abuse children must be held fully accountable in law.’ Fr Neil now outlines what a priest actually does in his day to day life and ministry.
In 2005 the total number of Catholic priests throughout the world was just over 400,000. The proportion of those found guilty of sexually abusing children is extremely small by comparison. That doesn’t for a moment lessen the seriousness of what has happened, but it does offer a much more positive picture of priesthood than the one currently being painted. No one seems to be speaking up in defence of priests; no one is countering the bad news with good; no one is offering a positive point of view.
What do people know about priests and the work they do? (And I would like to dispel at this point the popular myth that we only work on Sundays!)
Much of what a priest does will depend on the parish he is in because every parish is different and the things he will be called upon to do will therefore be different. There are the obvious things such as celebrating Mass each day, hearing confessions, and celebrating baptisms, weddings and funerals. There may be a parish school, a hospital and nursing homes to visit, possibly even a prison.
The following could be a typical day for a priest. His day begins with the celebration of morning Mass. After checking the post, he then heads out to visit a bereaved family to discuss the funeral with them. On the way back he visits the school and pops into the various classes to say hello. Back home he grabs a bite to eat before an appointment with a building contractor who arrives half an hour late and so he only just makes it in time for the deanery meeting he has to attend. Late afternoon he has several phone calls to return and some bills to pay. He manages to sit down for twenty minutes while he watches the news and then cooks and eats his dinner rather hurriedly because he has a couple coming to see him about a wedding. They too are late making him, in turn, late for a Parish Council meeting which goes on much longer than expected. It’s nine-thirty before he is able to catch up on some prayer time and then sits down to watch a programme he has been waiting for all week. But then the phone rings and he is off to the hospital to anoint someone who is dying. By the time he gets home it has been a fifteen hour day.
One of the more difficult things that a priest has to do is to be with families who have been bereaved. It is extremely difficult to suddenly have to step into a family’s grief and to try to sensitively provide both ministry and support to them in their needs, but it’s what is expected and it’s what he does – often several times a week but no less personally on each occasion. “Catholic priest comforts grieving family” is not a common headline, nor is “Priest celebrates Mass for 300”, or “Catholic priest brings inner healing through Confession”, or “Families line up for baptism by priest”, but they give a more accurate picture of priesthood than what we are currently hearing.
Hopefully when someone has a problem they need to talk about, rather than spending a fortune on counselling, they remember their priest. No priest is an expert on everything, nor will he necessarily have the greatest counselling skills, but as a priest he brings something to the situation that other professionals can’t by virtue of his priesthood. How many marriages have priests helped to save? How many suicides have they helped prevent? How many alcoholics have they helped turn their lives around? Those things don’t make headlines either.
Media coverage of the issue of abuse has become all that the priesthood is about just at the moment; there is no good news to help redress the balance, no “but on the other hand…” stories. It is making it possible for the actions of a minority who have already caused enough damage to the lives of those they have abused, to now cause even more damage – this time to the priesthood. The vast majority of priests are good men – not perfect, but generally good – who, day in day out, quietly get on with their ministry, serving their people and trying to live up to their expectations – never an easy task!
And the other thing that never seems to be mentioned is that the incidence of abuse by priests is no more than in the general population. There have always been “bogey men”; children have always suffered abuse at the hands of fathers, uncles, and even mothers, but the witch hunt doesn’t turn its attention to those areas of our society. As trustworthy as priests should be, surely a child’s own parents should be even more so. Why, then, is the focus only on priests?
As long as this continues, we find ourselves ministering under a cloud of suspicion that we don’t deserve. One way or another it puts that much more pressure on our ministry in an age when there is pressure enough already. And of course, in such a climate, sadly there is little wonder that young people, seeing what they see in the media about priesthood and not always hearing a voice in support of it, decide that it’s no way of life for them. Ultimately the people of our parishes will suffer as the number of priests available to serve them declines. Prayer is our ultimate hope: prayer for a priesthood currently under siege and prayer for vocations in spite of it.