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Enough humility to acknowledge that you may be wrong is the tool to fight dangerous dogma. It needs to be employed whenever the word ‘belief’ is used. Unfortunately many people confuse knowledge and belief and behave as though the latter were the former. We know things that are proven facts; we do not know what we believe. Believing something we know is impossible, although the word is often used loosely in colloquial language.

Humility is a strange quality. Those with it do not talk about it, certainly in relation to themselves. It is manifest mainly by its absence because humility is truth. It is not self-deprecation, which is false modesty, any more than it is boasting. It is recognition, usually quietly, of good and bad characteristics, of worthy and unworthy attributes, of successful achievement and failure.

Religions of all sorts used to put much more emphasis on the second of the three virtues – hope. Hope seems to have got increasingly left out of both religious and management practice in the last century. This is a pity for two reasons. It is an acknowledgement of the vulnerability of faith and it is a legitimate attribute of all who aspire to achieve. Perhaps we should hope more and bang the table a little less?

When dogma dictates bad behaviour what should the remedy be?

Expressions of sorrow to those affected are acceptable to the extent that they can ease the hurt that has been done. Not statements about being humbled, for sure. Any comment about the perpetrator by the perpetrator is merely a form of arrogance. We don’t give a monkey’s umbrella about how he or she feels. What everyone wants to know is what is going to be done to repair the damage and avoid a recurrence.

I illustrate using the two examples of dangerous dogma I have cited.

Murdoch is the head and culture creator of a big media empire. Not personally responsible for encouraging phone hacking, I believe, but absolutely responsible for the way in which the ethos of his business has developed. There are many ways he could have tackled the problem, among them greater transparency, something he is keen to offer for others but reluctant to demonstrate himself.

Had I been in his position I would have endowed a substantial sum of money to a number of Universities – to be chosen independently – to examine ways in which the capitalist model can be successfully modified to accommodate today’s demands for longer-term accounting, more ethical behaviour in business and fairer distribution of wealth without losing the essential driving force of human greed and ambition.

The Catholic Church has a different problem, its pedophilia stemming from practical as well as cultural issues. Apology, certainly, is right, and financial redress, although how you give back innocence is a mystery to me.

If I was Pope, I would announce the end of celibacy for clergy. I would then dress as a priest in a black suit with clerical collar and go to Ireland to take charge of what the Vatican hierarchy has demonstrably failed to grasp. I would repeat the exercise in all other countries affected by the scandal until I was satisfied that such behaviour would not happen again without immediately being reported to the police.

Neither of these suggestions is exclusive and they may be wrong. Both would start to restore some faith in the organisations concerned.

Are they too much to hope for?