The drama that surrounded the death of Richard Pratt showed the manner in which the desire for simplicity can distort reality. It seemed beyond the capacity of the media, and of many public figures, to acknowledge that Pratt, although a man of extraordinary generosity, also committed immoral acts that defrauded many people.
The inability to see that a single person is capable of committing both good and bad confines us to a morality painted without any shade of grey. This can only hurt our society.
Just as individuals are capable of both good and bad, so are institutions. Take the Irish Commission to Report into Child Abuse, known as the Ryan Report. The report details abuse in Catholic educational institutions in Ireland from as early as 1914 through to 2000. Most of incidents reported occurred between 1936 and the 1970.
The commission heard evidence from 1090 witnesses; 90 per cent reported having being abused physically, and about half reported having suffered sexual abuse, along with neglect and emotional abuse. These witnesses identified over 800 individuals, religious and lay, who had abused them physically and/or sexually in a religious environment.
The report's publication was ten years in the making and was dogged by many problems. The first chair of the commission, Justice Mary Laffoy, resigned in 2003, claiming that the lack of cooperation from the Government had rendered the commission powerless.
Justice Sean Ryan was then appointed but there was further delay when the Christian Brothers asked whether it was constitutional for the Investigative Committee to make findings of abuse against Brothers who could not properly answer allegations. The success of this action meant the final report did not name a single perpetrator.
During the course of the commission, only the Rosminians sought to understand abuse; other Congregations sought to 'explain' abuse. It became evident that some members of the Church, and sections of civil society, fail to understand that the abuse suffered by so many in the 'care' of religious institutions must be fully acknowledged.
The Pope was reported to be 'very distressed' by the report after meeting on 6 June with the Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin. The Vatican has, however, made no statement beyond official spokesman, Fr Federico Lombardi, commenting merely that this was 'a matter for the local church'.
But this matter goes beyond any local church. Eventually the Vatican will have to stand in solidarity with the victims of these crimes. The Roman Catholic Church makes the claim of being a universal church, and so its successes and failures must be understood within that dynamic. Like individual persons, the Church is capable of acting well and badly. To separate indivduals from the church diminishes the responsibility of the whole body.
The catalogue of sins laid out by the Ryan Report, but known long before, must be acknowledged in full. It would be wrong to deny that these are acts of the Catholic Church. It would also be wrong to respond to them simply with detached moral indignation. These barbaric acts occurred alongside self-sacrificing work and love within the very same Church. Instances of care and tenderness do not lessen the evil of abuse. Nor does the abuse cancel out the instances of goodness.
This reality is difficult to confront. It is antithetical to the simplistic accounts presented by the media and public figures. To ensure that such crimes never again occur, it is necessary to hold together in our minds the whole complex reality of an often tragically human Church. To minimise the evil of abuse would withdraw the Church from proper judgment. To ignore acts of quiet dignity within the Church would undermine the standards by which it should be judged.
LINK:
Irish Ryan Report blog
Julian Butler is a third year Commerce/Law student at the University of Melboure.