The recent Bishops’ Summit in Rome, which dealt with the clerical sexual abuse crisis, made headlines all over the world and came about as a result of the muckraking of bishops, cardinals and priests who had sexually abused children or who had handled such crimes inappropriately.

Among the summit’s many speeches delivered by experts in varying professions, two speakers made a great impact upon me. These were Cardinal Tagle of Manila and the Mexican journalist Valentina Alazraki.

Tagle’s words expressed a powerful and simple truth: “We humbly and sorrowfully admit, that wounds have been inflicted by us bishops on victims and in fact the entire body of Christ.” 

Explicitly, he is acknowledging that those in leadership within the Church are directly responsible for the abuse of her most vulnerable members, while also highlighting the fact that these same shepherds must now also be at the heart of the healing of those wounds in victims.

In turn, Alazraki, a Vatican correspondent for Mexico’s Noticieros Televisa since 1974, made some powerful observations as she sought to draw the attention of Pope Francis and all bishops and religious major superiors on how we must go forward in responding to the crisis.

The audacity of her words is refreshing and necessary as she stated: “If you do not decide in a radical way to be on the side of the children, mothers, families, civil society, you are right to be afraid of us, because we journalists, who seek the common good, will be your worst enemies.”

Alazraki highlights a most important truth here, given that the Church at times has proven readier to protect her reputation and even perpetrators than victims. This partly stemmed from victims and abuse itself as being perceived as a threat to the Church’s life by her hierarchy.

This seems a reality in the sexual abuse scandals of Chile and in the recent Pennsylvania report, where one can read shocking letters addressed by bishops to perpetrators of abuse in which the underlying message seems to be one favouring the cleric who had committed the offence rather than the innocent victim who had been wronged.

The sequence of the Church’s scandals and misplaced response recalls one of the famous Old Testament biblical stories, that of David and Bathsheba. Everyone knows the tale of how King David spotted Bathsheba from the roof of his palace having a bath and immediately desired to have her (2 Samuel, 11).

When the Church acted to protect perpetrators it caused far more damage and suffering to the victims and to her credibility than those priests and religious who had abused

The King dispatched his messenger to bring this married woman to him and they slept together. Bathsheba of course then conceived and sent a message to David informing him that she was with child. Now according to the law of Moses, David knew he had committed a grave sin in this brazen act of adultery in which he had taken one of his loyal soldier’s wives for himself.

There would be a price to pay!

Knowing he was in great trouble if this shameful news became public, his immediate response was to protect his reputation. He planned to have Uriah the Hittite, Bathsheba’s husband, killed in battle, sending a message to Joab requesting: “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die” (2 Samuel 11:15). 

And so, Uriah, an innocent victim was the one who had to pay for David’s shameful sin.

Echoes of this sad narrative are visible in the Church’s recent history where her leaders knew about the grave immoral behaviour of priests and religious who were sexually abusing innocent children but choose instead to hide the offence.

Rather than dealing openly and justly with such crimes, victim’s voices were often silenced as the truth and rights for justice were placed behind the need to prevent the Church from public scandal. Innocent victims, just like Uriah for King David, became threats to the Church’s leadership, to be resolved in order to save reputation and status.

Tragically, when the Church acted to protect perpetrators it caused far more damage and suffering to the victims and to her credibility than those priests and religious who had abused. The words Prophet Nathan spoke in confrontation to David’s immoral behaviour can similarly be addressed to the leaders of the Church today: “This is what the Lord says: Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you… You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel” (2 Samuel 12:11-12).

Thanks to pressure exerted by victims and journalists, what has happened in secret has indeed been brought now into the light. This brings us to the prospect of a more positive future as we witness what is surely a necessary purification process within the Church.

A difficult and challenging time but one hopefully of new beginnings.

Returning to King David, when he had been confronted publicly with his wrongdoing by God’s prophet, he responded by acknowledging his sin and in “sackcloth and ashes” he showed to all the sincerity of his humility and desire to change his ways.

Gaining God’s forgiveness, the repentant David would of course go to found a line of kings and a family from which our Saviour would be born. Repentant David’s future would be a blessed one.

 I believe that the Church’s blessed future similarly depends upon how fully she too bravely acknowledges her wrong and works now to fully bring this crisis to an end by giving public justice to all victims and no longer seeking to cover up the shameful actions of abusers.

For this we need and deserve good and holy shepherds, leaders as committed to change and as repentant King David was.

Fr Aaron Zahra is a Dominican priest. He is doing a masters in leadership and management in education with Trinity College, Dublin. His research project is about how those in leadership in Catholic education can prevent sexual abuse.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece