Preventing abuse

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Maximilian75 said:
cold showers, sleeping on the floor, fasting are all ways to increase self-control, and, therefore (i would say ) sexual desire and ergo child abuse.
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The problem with “increasing self-control” is that while it is great for breaking bad habits like masturbation that are generally not criminal (assuming you’re not doing it in public, in your office in front of the staff, etc.), it is not 100% reliable as someone’s self-control can slip up. If an abuser’s self-control slips up, even just once, around a child, then the abuser has very likely committed a felony, traumatized the victim over the long term, and possibly propagated the abuse into the next generation.

If some person with an unhealthy attraction to children uses cold showers as a coping mechanism, fine, but I’m not going to rely on his development of self-control to keep our children safe.
 
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@Roseeurekacross @LittleFlower and all the Australians or people affected reading this

I’m have sincere heart felt pain over what happened and what you guys are going through. I had no idea and the last 48 hours participating in LittleFlowers threads were an eye opening experience. I learned a lot and my mind completely changed on the innumerable aspects all of this involves.

When this does come to echo in the international media, people in my country will be talking about it, and I will try to answer them the best I can with what I learned here.

And I am very sorry, but I am not taking part in any CAF discussion about this subject again. I find it the most difficult discussion subject I have ever encountered, any contribution on my part would be pointless. Special thanks to @Roseeurekacross, you are regrettably by force of circumstance years ahead on this subject, a good informed catholic is precious.

You’ll be in my prayers.
 
Happy I created this thread, great responses and debate here. :+1:t2:

I think vetting of candidates, educational programmes at parishes and various other access points, educating children on consent, what feels right, etc. and open dialogue is how abuse could be minimised.

I don’t think any of the above should be done alone—the open dialogue also includes things like encouraging lay leadership to reduce clericalism issues.
 
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If you need to talk, please feel free to PM.

It is very hard to deal with, and I will also pray for you. 🌷 You are not alone with how you’re feeling.
 
Oh @LittleFlower, I am so sorry for speaking without thinking. All the Australians I’ve met here raise the bar to the highest level of human quality. Thank you. 🌷🌷🌷❤️💛💚💙💜💖
 
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We all learn, with God’s grace. 🌷 It’s hard, so please reach out via PM, to a trusted priest, or to friends and family if you are not coping.

⛪
 
its a tough topic. it is good to discuss though. Both for Catholics and non Catholics.
Getting everyones perspectives is very valuable.
As a community, fast becoming a reactionary subculture of secular society, I pray we find international solidarity and brotherhood, Clergy and laity. And move forward into a wonderful 21st Century. Its almost AD 2018…
 
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Mandatory child protection courses.
Police vetting of all applicants for any parish/teaching role.
Awareness of how to protect yourself from allegations of abuse.
Parental awareness of child protection policies.

These things definitely have eliminated abuse where I live. I’d safely say that the safest place for a child in Ireland today is in a Catholic school/church.
 
stupidisasstupiddoes said:
were this way Before they entered the priesthood.

Please, read “Royal Commission”, “Case study 50”, “Evidence 50-0002 Dr.Marie Keenan” for the scientific state of the art countering your assertion.

“My research suggests that while celibacy is not the problem that gives rise to sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy, a Catholic sexual ethic and theology of priesthood, which problematises the body and erotic sexual desire and emphasises chastity and purity over a relational ethic as the model for living, may be…The theology of sexuality, which contributes to self-hatred and shame, needs serious theological examination and revision.”

Seems like a conflict between how humans are and how humans should be…
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@adgloriam not sure why you withdrew the reply. Anyway, i’ve read the full 16 pages, it’s certainly food for thought and it does back up the arguement you made, although it is only based on a sample of 9. I also find it self-contradictory in places so here’s my take:

Pages 1-4, i think this is a good analysis of how / why it was covered up so much
Page 8: “Whilst screening the clergy might be important for a lot of reasons, the assumption
that it will pick up those men who might come to be accused of the sexual abuse of children
is not borne out by available research and clinical experience”.
Which is totally contradicted by
Page 10: “John Jay data to try to understand repeat offending by Catholic clergy found that a history of
childhood sexual victimization was found to be one of the strongest predictive variables for
clerical men to become repeat offenders”

If you know there’s a correlation as big as that then clearly that’s a risk factor that needs to be explored in screening. So that doesn’t make sense. I think she has a point but is tip toeing around the issues trying not to offend anyone. She keeps saying that celibacy isn’t the issue, but a lack of intimacy is. Well what solution is there where a priest can have intimacy but remain celibate?

it was worth reading though, it dispels some of the common myths. What was your take?
 
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It is ludicrous to suggest that the abusers are not same-sex attracted with percentages that high (and last year’s USCCB numbers showed similar numbers, and also showed that 90% were post-pubescent!!).

These abusers are unquestionably “same-sex attracted”, “oriented”, “desirous”, “seeking”. There is no other way to spin it away with PC sleight-of-hand or to hide from the hard facts. No real scientist would ignore percentages in these amounts or generate new terms to keep this pattern of sexual activity from being classified as “homosexual”. Only modern day, politically-driven social scientists/activists do that!! By definition it’s homosexual.

The rest of your points will take more time to work through; for most people, they’re common sense, but most people don’t have problems with equating “sex same attraction” with the term homosexual as you do.

I’ll be happy to defend those points in detail, when we get you back on track with the reality of the uber-majority of priest abusers
 
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@adgloriam, i think an simpler way of summarising it is that the report attacks the idea that paedophiles became priests. It tries to say that priests became paedophiles. But i think a more nuanced view is that priests with particular risk factors became paedophiles in an environment that facilitated it.
 
Edward_H said:
It is ludicrous to suggest that the abusers are not same-sex attracted with percentages that high
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I think you are confusing a few things: Sexual orientation is based on the gender you prefer to have sex with. Pedophilia has do with having a preference for having sex with children. Sexual victimization is the gender and the age you actually victimize and those three things are not the same. So yes, the actual victimization has predominantly been homosexual, but that does not indicate what the preference is.

Here’s an example: All sexual victimization in a male prison is going to be homosexual, obviously. But almost none of the offenders would identify as having homosexual preferences. Homosexuals in prison are almost always victims.

Research has shown that abusing priests do not primarily identify as having a homosexual preference or a preference for children. They abuse minor boys because they want high-control sex and minor boys are available and can be made to keep quiet. That puts these abusers in the category of predators. For predators, abuse is not as much about sex, but about control and dominance. Sex is just the medium they use to exert control. There is the sexual release, yes, but that is secondary. Many secular abusers who have been chemically castrated actually turn to violence for their control needs because sex is no longer available.

But what the numbers show is that if most of these abusers could get away with raping adult women, they would prefer that. But probably that prospect scares the heck out of them and they would never attempt it. Predators are very skillful at picking victims who will not cause them to get caught. So they prey on children. Boys seem to be the main target, because they are easier to “groom” as victims and the degree of shame involved helps keep the boys quiet.

Several studies have found no connection with sexual orientation and sexual victimization.
 
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I promised no to speak about it. I will give a scientific commentary: Sociology and Psychology are separated branches of human sciences. There is also Psycho-Sociology that brings both together were they border and need to be taken together. I found the study sound, of good scientific method, and setting the basic groundwork for anyone wanting to truly understand the nature of those human beings. I will say, that commenting on this without those basic perspectives invariably reduces the debate to an exchange of fruitless stereotypes and preconceptions.

I withdrew my replies for the simple reason, I was unsatisfied with the quality of what I had said. Finding myself giving opinions on grave matter that I am in no way qualified or knowledgeable to opine on.

I have read dozen of books on psychology and sociology, and it is barely enough to have a grasp on what the author of the study says. I would however “sum it up” (being reducing) the same way you did.
 
jfz178 said:
Research has shown that abusing priests do not primarily identify as having a homosexual preference or a preference for children.
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The second part is true, the first isn’t. McGlone (2002) suggests that 46%-66% of Roman Catholic clergy who sexually abuse children and young people are of a homosexual or bisexual orientation.
And “adult males who abuse adolescent males are much more likely to be men of a homosexual orientation (Marshall, 1988: 383-391; Langevin, 2000: 537)”
 
That’s interesting, thanks. Another point of data, which is good. There is research already cited that paints a different story, however. Also, the research you cite seems to be about all males who abuse, not just priests and adolescent victims, which is not the extent of priest sexual abuse.

The larger point, the point of this thread, is how do we prevent priests from abusing? The weakness of these kinds of studies, including the ones I have mentioned, is that they are after the fact. We don’t know if there is way to reliably screen priests for sexual orientation or that it would do any good if we did. Even the research you cite indicates there is a third to a half of abusers who are not homosexual. That would still lead to a lot of offenders.

I just don’t think there is an up front screening mechanism that can be effective, and even if there was, sexual orientation is not the main thing it should focus on. Criminal and deviant tendencies would be better choices.
 
One crude but effective rule would be “nobody can become a priest if they themselves were sexually abused as a child”. The risk profile is just too high even though not all would become abusers (obviously).
 
Yeah, that is tough one. I agree with you from a protective aspect. It pains me to think that we are blaming the victims when being a victim is not an absolute predictor of being an abuser, but I have to agree that if protecting children is paramount, it would help.
 
There’s no such thing as an absolute predictor in psychology, but look at the correlations. In psychology it’s rare to find more than a 0.3 correlation, here we have 0.3 as the lowest estimate:

Several studies have reported that clergy who have sexually abused minors have
experienced sexual abuse themselves in childhood, sometimes by another priest or religious
(Robinson, Montana and Thompson, 1993 (66%); Connors (1994) (30%-35%); Sipe (1995)
(70%-80%); Valcour (1990: 49) (33%-50%)).

and

four of the five men who experienced sexual abuse in childhood
subsequently abused boys using exactly the same techniques as those employed by their own
abuser.
 
More utter silliness.

These priests - by their own repeated behavior…and by the porn authorities find in their possession - “prefer to have sex” with other males, most often post-pubescent men.

They are homosexuals, predatory or not. End of story.
 
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