Take Time, (former Prince) Andrew, to Read of David
Marcella Manning
Nov 09 2025

The Profumo Example (Quadrant Online, Nov 04) offers an alternative future for the newly re-titled Mr. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor instead of existing as a social pariah.  Ross Fitzgerald and Dick Whitaker’s outline of John Profumo’s honest repentance, public remorse, and charitable good works is a wake-up call to those who follow the Jewish-Christian tradition in regard to any abusive predator. For three thousand years the rehabilitation of David from his sexually perverted behaviour and subsequent transformation into the most famous, most revered monarch of Old Testament history has offered a template for a responsible intervention and ongoing restoration to virtue as an alternative to legalistic, punitive reprisals.  Even if a person’s level of depravity demands incarceration, common humanity calls for time-tested, authentic strategies for penitence and spiritual conversion to be promoted by persons of good will.

It so happened that while his military forces were campaigning against the neighbouring Ammonites, King David chose to remain comfortably at home in Jerusalem [1].  One evening while he was enjoying a relaxing stroll on the flat roof of his palace, he spied a beautiful woman taking a bath in the privacy of her home next door.  Besotted, David sent for her, seduced her and she became pregnant.  It turned out that she was Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, a Hittite, and one of the King’s elite soldiers engaged in the Ammonite war.
To cover his tracks David called Uriah back from the battlefield. The two-faced King received him warmly, discussed the state of the war, and encouraged Uriah to go home and enjoy a well-earned break from military duty — some rest and relaxation with his wife.  Out of loyalty and solidarity with his fellow soldiers enduring the hardships of war, Uriah chose instead to find makeshift accommodation sheltering alongside the palace guard.

Foiled in his plot to attribute Bathsheba’s pregnancy to Uriah, David’s next despicable move was to send Uriah back to the front carrying sealed orders to Joab, David’s military commander, instructing him to
station Uriah in the thick of the fight and then fall back behind him so that he may be struck down and die.
This time David’s malicious ploy worked and Uriah was killed.  After a decent interval for her to mourn for her husband, David sent for Bathsheba and installed her in his harem with his other wives and concubines.

This might have been the end of this episode but, presumably, the ever-efficient grapevine brought news of the affair to the ears of Nathan, the prophet.  He took up his God-given responsibility to intervene in David’s double-dealing behaviour and challenge him to repentance.  Courageously, Nathan risked David’s ire and presented himself to the King, reciting this story:
In the same town there were two men, one rich, the other poor.  The rich man had flocks and herds in great abundance; the poor man had nothing but a ewe lamb, one only, a small one he had bought.  This he fed, and it grew up with him and his children, eating his bread and drinking from his cup, sleeping on his breast; it was like a daughter to him.  When there came a traveller to stay, the rich man refused to take one of his own flock or herd to provide for the wayfarer who had come to him.  Instead, he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for his guest.

Infuriated by such treachery David declared to Nathan,
the man who did this deserves to die.  He must make fourfold restitution for the lamb, for doing such a thing and showing no compassion.
Nathan’s dramatic, penetrating, razor-sharp judgement, “You are the man,” startled David into recognising his own, far worse duplicity.  He could do no other than confess to Nathan, “I have sinned against Yahweh.” Nathan followed up his parable of denunciation with a run-down of the many blessings God poured out on David and his shameful “contempt, doing what displeases him”.  
1 Corinthians 10:11-13 advises us in regard to such past history.

All this happened to them as a warning, and it was written down to be a lesson for us …. The persons who think they are safe must be careful that they do not fall.
Nathan predicted correctly that David would live to find his sins had brought their own punishment.  In the subsequent disasters that beset David the old sayings, “What goes around comes around” and “As you sow, so shall you reap,” were tragically manifest.

For his later life David experienced the gracious invitation which everyone may share,
Shake off all the sins you have committed against me, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! ……. I take no pleasure in the death of anyone – it is the Lord Yahweh who speaks.  Repent and live!  (Ezekiel 18:31, 32)

The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), based on his own experience of sexual conversion, for five hundred years have offered a set of strategies for appropriating “a new heart and a new spirit”.  For a start they recommend making every effort to prevent any fall from grace by avoiding situations leading to relapse. It is obviously wise, if Andrew seeks redemption, to avoid places and entertainments promoting promiscuity or pornography.

Paedophiles need to take personal responsibility and to accept banishment from positions of power and proximity to children or vulnerable adults.  Similarly, another complementary recovery resource, Sexaholics Anonymous, has the purpose to overcome aberrant sexual behaviour in the inability to exercise impulse control.

Ignatius recommends to “act as if”, to adopt the disposition towards an honourable life so that the reality may ensue. Sexaholics Anonymous wisdom encourages members to “fake it till we make it.”  Repetitive, positive self-talk, based on authentic spiritual principles engenders a reordering of values and consequent honourable behaviour.  The Apostle Paul highlights the Holy Spirit’s desire for us (Philippians 4:4-9),
I want you to be happy, always happy in the Lord; ….. There is no need to worry; but if there is anything you need, pray for it, asking God for it with prayer and thanksgiving and that peace of God, which is so much greater than we can understand, will guard your hearts and your thoughts, in Christ Jesus.

Finally, friends, fill your minds with everything that is true, everything that is noble, everything that is good and pure, everything that we love and honour, and everything that can be thought virtuous or worthy of praise … Then the God of peace will be with you.  
Ideally, wise people intent on overcoming their personal disorders/ addictions enlist the support of other travellers, preferably older, wiser, longer-term members of a spiritual setting, within a Church, a Twelve Step Program or other supportive groups.  Calling on such a friend/adviser in times of temptation often wards off a relapse or inspires courage to get up and go, upwards and onwards after a fall.

Instead of wasting time wallowing in guilt and despair on such occasions, the statement, coined by Patrick Flanigan, might be useful.  As a stationmaster in the remote west of Ireland he supervised a very run-down set of railway tracks which commonly caused derailments.  Eventually he refined his required reports to headquarters to this brief message, “Off again, up again, on again, Flanigan.”

For travellers on track to recovery, having attended to any necessary amends to injured others, it’s time to arise and pick up where they left off but with renewed hope in ongoing self-possession.

The prophet, Isaiah, spoke of the great day when a descendant of David, Jesus, would lead people of faith and courage into a new world order.  Two thousand years later, that invitation to grace and healing, embraced decades ago by the disgraced John Profumo, remains open to the former Prince Andrew.

Marcela Manning has spent many years working with addicts of all kinds

[1] Scripture quotations, including excerpts from 2 Samuel 11 and 12, are from the Jerusalem Bible, Darton, Longman & Todd, London, 1966

Quadrant OnLine, 9 November 2025