FROM THE DESK OF Roland Rocchiccioli – March 13, 2019

One of my boarding school reports read: ‘He still has to learn not to argue with authority; and it is high-time he did!’

I DID not understand what it meant then, and I still don’t. Curiously, my late father, Ginger, read it without comment. I was not an argumentative child, but certainly I was not prepared to put-up with any of what my late mother, Beria, called: “Your bloody nonsense!” I remember the sportsmaster, Colin Pike, was a fool. He had no regard for me, and I had even less for him. Clearly, getting good staff, and paying them a pittance, made things devilishly difficult for the boarding establishment, but that was not my problem. Pike was possessed of an obviously below average intelligence, and never should he have been put in charge of a large group of adolescent boys, all of whom recognised his intellectual shortcomings. While most were prepared to stand their ground to a certain point, I was more audacious. I was most indignant if I felt I was being put-upon, or treated unfairly; and I said as much. Often to my own detriment.

The revelations of child abuse within the various organisations has given me cause to reflect on the imbalance of power which existed then, and which in some instances, has carried through until today.

As a child, my life was predicated, to a great or lesser extent, by the teachings of the Catholic church; and while on the one hand I knew well the religious dogma, on the other I had a mother who lived her life as she wanted. Religiosity and social mores were of no interest. She was twice divorced – although the first relationship was not officially legal as he was already married to a woman in Italy. She was, and to her eternal regret, on her third husband, a most appalling man. She agreed that all her children would be brought-up Catholics, and proved good for her word. Despite the peccadilloes and vagaries of her extraordinary life, it did not stop the diocesan priest, Father Spain, from calling to visit, regularly. They were great friends and I think Father Spain – or Keith as she called him – like her directness and lack of guile; and her delicious fruit cake!

So draconian and pervasive was the power of the church, and other authoritarian institutions, that, viewed through the prism of 2019, it is understandable how the criminal activity came to pass, and was allowed to continue unimpeded and unabated. No-one dared argue with authority which in the case of the church, and its perceived teachings, the priest was the representative of Christ on earth. If not he, then the Pope, who ran the church and whose very portrait struck dread into the hearts of the faithful, most certainly was! In short, if you questioned the priest, or, God forbid, the infallibility of the Holy Father, you were questioning God. That was a mortal sin and punished by time in Hell or Purgatory. While today that surely sounds like a whole lot of mumbo-jumbo, it held great sway in a more innocent and less sophisticated ethos, the edicts and beliefs of which, today, make for amusing, even laughable, reading. In reality, the majority of catholic parents would have found it impossible, absolutely, to believe that a priest, who every Sunday miraculously turned the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, was capable of committing such heinous crimes.

As a child I enjoyed the ritual of the church – to this day, the smell of burning sandalwood takes me instantly to a time and a place – but I was spared its claustrophobic and destructively controlling elements. I loved it for the spectacle. If the catholic and apostolic church – and the various of its break-away splinter groups – is to survive for another 2000-years, then the time is ripe for another reformation; a stripping away of the pomp and theatre; a 21st century interpretation of the bible; the shedding of power; the inclusion of woman; and a return to the basic tenets of the teachings of the man we know historically as Jesus Christ. That is its only hope.

Roland can be heard every Monday morning – 10.30 – on radio 3BA or you can email him via [email protected].