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If I were to ask you to complete the phrase 'Silence is', which adjective would come to mind? Silence is – golden, rare, frightening, welcome, mysterious, necessary? There can be few entities which have almost as many negative as positive associations. Most religions regard silence as an aid to spiritual awareness, an ambiance in which divine insight or inspiration might be gained. The life of Jesus begins in silence – there are no trumpets blaring, bells ringing or town criers celebrating his birth. And during his trial he meets the protestations of his accusers and the interrogation of his judge with silence. But it would be wrong to associate silence primarily with holiness when there are more pernicious resonances which have to be attended to....as when people counsel themselves or others to 'keep quiet' about something which needs to be articulated. There's possibly no more significant silence at the moment than that which surrounds the issue of child sex abuse which affects one in 20 children in Britain and which – according to a recent NSPCC report - appears to be on the increase with an incident happening every eight minutes. For a long while abused children were compelled to be silent, out of fear or a lack of vocabulary. That is changing. But as the recent trial of Barry Bennell suggested, his predatory exploits which involved innumerable young boys (and therefore thousands of instances) must have flourished because people associated with him in the football world kept quiet. The children who survived had no voice or credibility; but others who may have known what was going on could have prevented unspeakable misery. I hope that these people feel both relieved at his imprisonment and guilty for failing to expose him... guilty not as an end in itself, but as a goad to prevent them ever being silent again should they be aware of similar abuse. But there is another silence which is much more difficult to speak of. This is the silence of those who know they have a strong impulse to engage sexually with children, but will not articulate this for fear of prosecution. Child protection measures and stiffer sentences are insufficient deterrents for such individuals who I believe were made in God's image. They need the best therapy - much rarer to come by than instant condemnation - in order that they can fulfil rather than pervert their humanity, and so that children can be safe.