‘Many adults live in a bubble of self-denial, which has to be broken – and part of that self-denial is a very persuasive manner to trust them. You have to chip away till you get to the truth of the situation.’

These were the words of Vincent Nichols, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Westminster, last week, addressing the scandal currently rocking the foundations of the Roman Catholic Church over the widespread abuse of children by paedophile priests.

A crisis of celibacy for the individuals turned into or a crisis of secrecy for the institution, since its lengthy silence on the issue has allowed for accusations of complicity through neglect and a raft of costly law suits.

Confronting difficult issues requires special nerve, especially when exposure can often reflect as badly on those charged with policing behaviour as on the perpetrators. Benign neglect can easily be construed as wilful cover-up.

From Westminster’s sleaze-wallowing dishonourable members who have conspired to taint forever the reputation of the mother of Parliaments to the blundering child protection agencies who’ve conspicuously neglected failings in their own systems for monitoring the vulnerable, the rush to ‘down periscope’ and retreat into self-deluding insolence has become a characteristic response by those pledged to uphold the trust and welfare of all citizens.

It may simply be that we fear some issues have such a catastrophic potential, we just can’t conceive how to deal with them. So we try to keep them at bay in the hope they will go away.

Take for instance the ‘big issue’ of the moment – global climate change. A pretty inoffensive little series of government sponsored nursery rhymes, warning of the consequences of wanton neglect of the environment, drew 900 complaints from the public.

It caused the Advertising Standards Authority to muscle into the debate on the side of caution. Too exaggerated, they ruled. A case of: we know how bad it’s going to be, but we can’t tell people ’cos they won’t like what they should be hearing. Frightened horses are fragile beasts.

But hasn’t it always been so? As our island prepares to celebrate 65 years of deliverance from Nazi oppression, we can only wonder how many saw World War II coming, given the sort of official reassurance and bland reporting style of the time which masked the true apprehension of the approaching calamity.

While there may be those who consistently overplay the prediction of certain doom, they are more than evenly matched by those who would prefer to bury their heads in sand. ‘It won’t happen to us’ proved to be as delusory for those who shunned Noah while he went about building his DIY ark as for those who fastened the Pompeian casements as Vesuvius trembled beneath them.

It is all too easy to put off administering the medicine when we’re basking in remission. From the depths of the current global financial recession now upon us, I wonder how many of us now rue the chuckles about the quaintly named Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while we were all building up mountains of unsustainable credit.

We’re fine with assessing ‘ordinary’ risks. In fact, it’s become quite an institutional obsession. The problem is, we can’t do extremes. The enormity may just be beyond our pain barrier. The first two months of this year have already delivered a spate of natural catastrophes in Haiti, Chile, Western France and Madeira which forced us to take account of the awesome power of circumstances beyond our control and precise prediction.

Nevertheless, our natural healing instincts comfort us with the belief that we live in a more stable region of the globe. We missed Hurricane Xynthia, were let off pandemic flu, so when the threat passes we breathe a sigh of relief and take our collective eye off the ball once again. You don’t only insure your house if you know it’s going to burn down.

While self denial falls neatly into the category of laziness, ignorance or cowardice, wilful denial is altogether more obdurate. We’re all aware of the bully, thief or murderer who, even when confronted face to face with incontrovertible evidence, will forcibly continue to deny involvement. Increasingly, we’re hearing the pathetic, over-used plea that so-and-so denies ‘any wrongdoing’ – which simply means they’ve been caught red-handed in whatever nefarious skulduggery, but have set their lawyers the task of finding some obscure loophole to allow them safe passage.

The current favoured ‘get out of denial free’ card appears to be the third party apology, offered at a high level, way after the event. And we’ve seen a veritable parade recently. Pope Benedict has just done it over serial priestly child abuse. A couple of months before, Gordon Brown said sorry for the deportation of hundreds of British kids to Australia.

Not so long ago, we witnessed a raft of knee-bending apologies for the 17th and 18th century slave trade, short of any meaningful offer of reparation. It’s hard not to view such orchestrated displays of contrition as a masquerade designed to allow those pricked by contemporary conscience to achieve closure.

Frankly, it means less to those to whom it’s offered than those who make it. In short, it provides lip-service absolution but does nothing to dispel the underlying cause of the denial. Perhaps that’s why Tony Blair has stubbornly refused to apologise for his complicity in the invasion of Iraq.

It takes courage to admit publicly to failings because it involves the risk that those judging you may be influenced by their own demons. It would be unrealistic, therefore, to expect any sudden outpouring of genuine remorse. As Tiger Woods would say – and did repeatedly – ‘it’s a private matter.’