The effects of abuse

South African Catholics will have been dismayed to learn on national television news that a Catholic priest has been charged in a Cape Town court with sexual abuse of minors going back to 20 years.

The priest, who by law may not be identified until he has been asked to plead, must be regarded as innocent until a time when, if at all, the court has found otherwise. The faithful should not yield to the temptation to speculate as to the credibility of the charges against the priest or his identity, even if his name has filtered through the grapevine.

Whatever the merits of this case, the Church is once again reminded of the scandal of abuse of minors by clergy and religious.

It must be clearly understood that such abuse, a grave sin, has no place in the Church, as the unidentified official of the archdiocese of Cape Town rightly stresses in our report this week.

Sexual abuse leaves deep emotional scars on those subjected to it. When the perpetrator is a person in a position of trust – such as a priest, a teacher or a family member – the breach of faith is compounded. More than that, because of the abuser’s status, many victims fear that they may not be believed, often with good reason.

Many survivors of sexual abuse blame themselves for their violation?a feeling exacerbated by many fellow Catholics who have been unable to conceive of the notion that a priest could commit depraved acts.

Abuse can take many forms. Even relatively innocuous forms of abuse, such as inappropriate kissing or touching, can have devastating effects on victims.

Sexual abuse by Church personnel also harms the People of God, as the link of trust between faithful and their pastors is impaired. Catholics will agree that the vast majority of priests are not sexual predators; but they do not know who within the tiny minority the abusers are.

In this sense, the abuser harms not only his victims, but also his virtuous brother priests, who might now be treated with suspicion by proxy. This is an unjust position many priests may be facing.

Every case of a minor being abused by a priest or religious is a scandal. However, the real source of outrage in many countries involved the mishandling (including some unconscionable cover-ups) of complaints. In the litigious United States, such neglect of responsibility-a conspiracy of silence described in a 2004 Church report as “epidemic”- has bankrupted several dioceses.