It’s hard to stand up when you’re being trampled underfoot

TOM Hanks has been talking about his book, ‘Uncommon Type’. When asked about Harvey Weinstein, during an interview on BBC Television, he said that it was such a sensational story that in the years ahead there would be a verb ‘to weinstein’ and a noun too, ‘the weinstein’ When I mentioned to a friend I was going to write a column on ‘weinsteining’ and bullying she said: “Bullying occurs everywhere: in marriage especially, parents, children. Reins are kept on money, sex, etc. As for the church, don’t get me started. It happens to the elderly, in banks, nursing homes, everywhere.”

The women who have spoken about Weinstein deserve great praise. People have spoken about how Weinstein conveyed an aura about him that seemed to make him special, as if he were some sort of genius. His demeanour screamed, ‘how dare anyone challenge or say boo to me’. He felt he was omnipotent. He had power. It’s that aura thing that is intriguing.

When I was a young priest attending University College Cork I experienced first-hand how bullying seems to be linked with this phoney aura. On one occasion, I was with a group of novices who were discussing what it was like to live in religious community. There was an older man present and he had spent most of his priesthood in positions of authority in the Order. He was arguing that religious life was similar to a family. I disagreed with him and said so in a forthright manner.

The following day he arrived at my room, screaming and roaring at me. It happened between 1976 and 1979 and I can still see the rage and anger in his face. He warned me that unless I apologised to him he would have me removed immediately from the house where I was living. I was scared and, to my great shame, I apologised.

Over the years I observed this man, who is now dead. It’s said you should never speak ill of the dead. Why not? I discovered things about him, things that are nasty and vile. But it all fitted perfectly with my experience of him that morning.

He had an aura about him. He gave the impression of being superior, cultivated, gentle, knowledgeable. He was ever so suave. He may well have been knowledgeable, but he certainly was not superior nor cultivated. Nor was he gentle. He was a brute, a brute like Weinstein. And as with Weinstein there were always rumours about him but nobody ever enunciated words which made it clear that he was not a nice person.

Every time I hear people talk about Weinstein I’m reminded of this man. I get angry with myself that I did not challenge him that morning, that I did not tell him to take a hike. There would have been no point in reporting him because he had all the power stacked in his hands. No one would have believed me. In the intervening years I never said anything to him. He intimidated me. I am ready now to scream it from the rooftops, his name too, but the damage has been done.

When people question why no one stood up to Harvey Weinstein earlier, I know exactly why they didn’t. And so too do all those innocent victims who have been bullied and terrorised by the Weinsteins of this world.