The current fashion is to gleefully accuse many people of pedophilia and I counsel caution.

It seems that the more famous (or infamous) someone is, the more glee we have in accusing them. I imagine I hear the salacious, satisfied smacking of lips that accompany yet another posting of yet another supposed pedophile.

Now, I’m not taking sides with those who commit these grisly, inhuman crimes. If they have, indeed, committed a Crime, we can point fingers.

My Caution is for us to be very careful of the basis of these accusations for, in the main, people are accused and their photo jubilantly displayed to the world on the basis of someone else saying it’s so … and the memory rises of the nine million women who were killed for witchcraft in the Middle Ages. Like the McCarthy era (reds under the bed and all that), the witching times were the perfect opportunity to air our grievances at another’s expense – death or imprisonment – with no evidence at all.

I ask you: If I accuse you of a crime with no evidence – I just don’t like you, for whatever reason – and allow the death of your body or liberty, am I better than you or not? Is a murderer better than a pedophile … particularly when the accused (you) has no chance to prove their innocence?

See, we think we’re such an evolved species but nothing has changed in 1,500 years – we’re just as quick to point our fingers, to sign up to the Accusation Association and play the Division Game where there’s us and there’s them.

On our side there’s us, the virginally blameless ones with God-like clarity that the rumours we hear are irrefutably true. And, far, far away, across the River of Destiny, are them – the unwashed, evil, callous ones who would damage another human for their own selfish desires … but, hang on, are the us and them really that different, if we’re posting their names and photos for the public to jeer at – just like the pillories of old?

My caution, my friends, is to ask that we stop for a moment, look to our own hearts, minds and histories and ask, “Who among us is blameless and can throw the first stone?”

My caution is to only pillory those who have passed through the Rule of Law, have been proven guilty and are bigger tyrants than we are.

My caution is to step back from applying the Law of Gossip, the Law of Innuendo, and from accusing people of any crime by association or by general consensus.

If we adopt the Law of Gossip, it could easily be us blameless ones who are pilloried on Facebook tomorrow.

Let us, please, step back from the savagery of 1,500 years ago. Let us, instead, extinguish thoughts, words and deeds that do not befit the Love we are aspiring to be. Let us, please, do this before we leap on our chargers, lances levelled, to kill another human being before they have the opportunity for explanation and redemption.

After all, it’s what we would expect for ourselves, isn’t it?