Catholic priests are not the only child abusers

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7533732/Catholic-priests-are-not-the-only-child-abusers.html

You have to hand it to the BBC: it tries, in its way, to be impartial. To that end, Radio 4's Broadcasting House yesterday interviewed a man called Trevor who was sexually assaulted when he was a child by an Anglican vicar – rather than a Catholic priest.

Trevor, who is still justifiably enraged about it, says that it put him off religion for life. But where does that leave us? With the notion that the Churches are merely clerical outfitters for pederasts? Certainly, given the latest allegations about child abuse in a school for the blind in Italy, most Catholics will, once again, be pulling the duvet over their heads. Notwithstanding Trevor, the CofE isn't in the same league.

Yep, I too turned my face to the wall. But there's a problem with the way we're looking at this: as a present scandal, not as belated acknowledgement of crimes that were, by and large, committed two or three decades ago and grotesquely mishandled back then by bishops.

Offenders who were once humiliatingly unfrocked were, in the Seventies, sent off for therapy, which is more than their victims ever got. Clerical scandals are still happening, not least in Italy, but in an interview published in The Tablet, the man in charge of these cases in Rome, Mgr Charles Scicluna, says that in the past couple of years, he's dealt with 250 cases a year worldwide. That's almost certainly an underestimate and 250 too many, but it's not, God help us, as bad as before.

In Britain there are now exemplary guidelines for clergy in dealing with these allegations; cases are now referred to the police. For that change in culture, most credit must go to people who spoke out about what happened in the past, but some should go to the Pope, who took charge of the issue in 2001.

Right now, most of my priest friends go out of their way not to be left alone with a child, which is dispiriting in itself. But even in the past, about four per cent of clergy in Ireland and less than half of one per cent in England and Wales attracted allegations of abuse. That's bad, God knows, but it's comparable with the problem elsewhere. And there's the rub. It's handy to displace our paranoia about children on to an institution. But the reality remains that children are most at risk in their own homes. Yet we don't demonise fathers. We don't sound off about the danger to children of living with a stepfather – men who are, judging by American research, four times more likely to abuse a child than a blood parent.

I'm all for prosecuting clerical molesters, but if we think the problem of child sex is out there in the Vatican, or even in the CofE, we're kidding ourselves.

* Come British Summer Time, come the annual debate about putting the clocks forward. One headline yesterday said: "Parties back clock change to give extra hour of light." Really? If they can do that, they're a force of nature. Look, we get so much daylight; we can start the day when we like to make the most of it. What politicians can't do is give us more light.

* Wasn't it just brilliant, the Radio 4 interview with Ian Paisley, 83, on Saturday? The great man cheerfully declared that he had prayed with Martin McGuinness, the republican leader; unlike any other politician, he wasn't remotely embarrassed about it. Genial from first to last, he upheld his new reputation as half of the "Chuckle Brothers". Given where he's coming from, it shows anything's possible in the way of personal transformation. Did you ever think you'd see the day when the old villain would become a national treasure?