Study: Homosexuality, celibacy didn't cause abuse

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Researchers commissioned by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to analyze patterns of clergy sex abuse over decades have concluded that homosexuality, celibacy and an all-male priesthood did not cause the scandal.

The report from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice said the majority of molestation cases involved priests who were ordained in the 1940s and 1950s, at a time when seminaries did not properly train them to live a celibate life. These men were not equipped to withstand the social upheaval of the 1960s, which was a time of an increase in sexual deviancy and crime in society at large, the authors said.

The study is the last of three reports the bishops commissioned in 2002, as part of child protection reforms adopted at the height of the abuse crisis. The goal of this latest report was to help identify patterns of abuse and how the church responded to the problem in the hope of better protecting children. The report is to be released Wednesday by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Researchers reviewed abuse allegations from more than 10,000 people against thousands of priests since the 1950s.

The report says the abuse problem peaked in the 1970s, then began declining sharply, at a time when there were no changes in the celibacy mandate and only men were ordained. Therefore, these were not factors in the crisis, researchers said. The majority of known victims were boys, prompting many in the church to say that gay priests were to blame. The John Jay researchers rejected that argument, saying the offenders chose boys because clergy had greater access to them.

According to the report, only a tiny percentage of accused priests — less than 5% — could be technically defined as pedophiles. The authors of the study define pedophile as an adult with an intense sexual attraction to prepubescent children.

Victim advocates have said that the study cannot be trusted since the raw data was provided by the bishops. A spokeswoman for the bishops’ conference insisted the bishops fully cooperated with the study, which was partly funded with a grant from the Department of Justice.

usatoday.com/news/religion/2011-05-17-church-abuse-report_n.htm
 
Having sex with a child is bad. Having sex with a child who has reached puberty is bad. I cannot understand why the Church keeps trying to point out that the victims of this abuse were in many cases post-pubescent. It is still bad. A good start in addressing this might be to raise the age of female consent to marriage in canon law from the present 14 years. Although I know it is higher when civil law requires it, this sends a message that an adult Catholic can reasonably contemplate sex with a 14 year-old. This is not a reasonable thing for any adult to contemplate, in marriage or out. I also wonder why Bishops and religious superiors do not instruct those who have taken a vow of obedience to them to turn themselves in to the police if they have offended against children. This would make it impossible for an offender to remain, in good conscience, as a priest or religious without doing the right thing. I am assuming that at the moment there are priests and religious who have confessed their sin but who have never faced the appropriate legal action.
 
The study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York instead said that the problem was largely the result of poor seminary training and insufficient emotional support for men ordained in the 1940s and 1950s, who were not able to withstand the social upheaval they confronted as pastors in the 1960s. Crime and other deviant behavior increased overall in the United States during this period, when the rate of abuse by priests was climbing.
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“The rise in abuse cases in the 1960s and 1970s was influenced by social factors in society generally,” the report’s authors said. “Factors that were invariant during the time period addressed, such as celibacy, were not responsible for the increase or decline in abuse cases over this time.”
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Sounds like the study is shifting blame from one thing to another. First it was homosexuality, now it’s social upheaval of the 1960s and poor seminary training.

I have a hard time believing that the major changes in society in the 1960s caused priests to suddenly become pedophiles and molesters. The fact remains that these individuals didn’t enact these disgusting crimes because African-Americans, Women, Students, Peaceniks were marching or getting assaulted by the National Guard/Police or that the War in Vietnam had suddenly turned the clergy into deviancy.

I don’t doubt that a proper support network for psychological and emotional issues did not exist. Considering psychology and emotions have only become a norm to discuss in today’s society. At the same time, the culpability of those who stood by and did nothing is undoubtedly a shame of all those involved whether they committing crimes or not. However, blaming the post-war rigidness and the upheaval of the 1960s as somehow the major factors in why pedophiles were allowed into the priesthood in the first place is ludicrous.
The authors, in findings first reported by Religion News Service, said they found “no single cause” of child sex abuse by priests and no “psychological characteristics” or “developmental histories” that distinguished guilty priests from clergy who did not molest children.
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I similarly find this a bit hard to believe. Especially in the case of such profound amount of pedophiles committing these heinous acts, they somehow didn’t come to a single shared characteristic, even amongst the majority of those who molested? The problem is, that those who molest tend to have been molested in the past themselves, and generally share a trait. They are on average not normal Joe Plumber. They fit certain psychological characteristics, with a certain upbringing which lead to a recipe of depravity and deviancy. At least, that’s what I’ve learned from a handful of courses and general interest in psychology. I would safely say that 7/10 pedophile molesters do not suddenly decide to molest overnight. It’s something which has been brewing in them for a long time.

Personally, the failure of these scandals is a general lack of psychological understanding of both the perpetrators and unfortunately in some cases the victims themselves.

If anything, I think it must be understood why good priests did nothing to say about these scandals. The Inter-War generation in the United States and around the world grew up having lived through the Great Depression. A World War, where millions of people both combatants and non-combatants died. That inter-war generation which filled the ranks of the clergy along with all other walks of life, had been on the verge of the last generation which did not speak out, kept to themselves, mild-mannered, they did what they thought needed to be done and did not talk about it. Growing up in a world, where families often did not talk about emotions and other related issues, would have been detrimental in the upbringing of both those who were guilty of having committed the crimes and those who were culpable in not bringing them to the attention of others.

I really, don’t think the 1960s was a time that somehow redefined the priesthood when it came to debauchery and impropriety. If anything, the generation of people who participated in mass eventually began to change. However, the effects of the generation which spoke out against violence and intolerance did not always trickle down as quickly as possible to the children who were the victims of select few pedophiles, who abused the trust of people because of their status as Priests.

If anything, the 1960s changed the way the world began to view sexual relations it didn’t give pedophiles who thought they ought to become priests, the capacity to suddenly molest. Even than, it took almost another twenty years for the concept of sexual harassment in the workplace to come into major effect in ending violation of individuals rights from harassment.

The culture where harassment finally began to be addressed, was a watershed for many of the victims of pedophiles who hid behind the clerical collar. Even than, many were not able to come forth because their dignities had been violated, and their trust for these individuals destroyed.

Personally, I think this study is flawed. It states clearly that because they could not connect to a general background of what a pedophile pretending to be a priest will look like, they can’t technically be screened out of the seminary before they become priests. Considering psychological analysis of individuals in the world outside of the priesthood and their characteristics, it would seem that for a scandal of such sheer size, a pattern could be made.
 
I couldn’t agree with you more. God bless the victims of yesterday, today, and tomorrow (since they claim they are unable to identify any common ‘characteristics’)
 
Hokomai said:
Having sex with a child is bad. Having sex with a child who has reached puberty is bad. I cannot understand why the Church keeps trying to point out that the victims of this abuse were in many cases post-pubescent. It is still bad. A good start in addressing this might be to raise the age of female consent to marriage in canon law from the present 14 years. Although I know it is higher when civil law requires it, this sends a message that an adult Catholic can reasonably contemplate sex with a 14 year-old. This is not a reasonable thing for any adult to contemplate, in marriage or out. I also wonder why Bishops and religious superiors do not instruct those who have taken a vow of obedience to them to turn themselves in to the police if they have offended against children. This would make it impossible for an offender to remain, in good conscience, as a priest or religious without doing the right thing. I am assuming that at the moment there are priests and religious who have confessed their sin but who have never faced the appropriate legal action.
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The Church isn’t the one pointing it out in this case, it is the report done by the John Jay Criminal Justice.
 
Huh! I would have thought homosexual urges to be at the core of the abuse.
 
WASHINGTON – Researchers commissioned by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to analyze the pattern of clergy sex abuse have concluded that homosexuality, celibacy and an all-male priesthood did not cause the scandal.

The study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York instead said that the problem was largely the result of poor seminary training and insufficient emotional support for men ordained in the 1940s and 1950s, who were not able to withstand the social upheaval they confronted as pastors in the 1960s. Crime and other deviant behavior increased overall in the United States during this period, when the rate of abuse by priests was climbing.

“The rise in abuse cases in the 1960s and 1970s was influenced by social factors in society generally,” the report’s authors said. “Factors that were invariant during the time period addressed, such as celibacy, were not responsible for the increase or decline in abuse cases over this time.”

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110518/ap_on_re/us_rel_church_abuse_report;_ylt=ArlKQhl9GLmKkHPf7lFQYQIDW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTJ2MjhiZHVyBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTEw
 
The report itself will be published only today.

This newspaper preliminary seems to be realist

cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2011/05/major_report_challenges_myths.html
  • 6000 priests were accused, 5% of the total number of priests, less than 240 (.02% of the total) could be considered pedophile
  • The disproportionate number of adolescent male victims was about opportunity, not preference or pathology, the report states.
  • The “situational” nature of the abuse by clergy is comparable to that of police officers who brutalize people,
 
This is interesting! I need to have a look at this one.

My hypothesis for some time has been that it isn’t celibacy, nor necessarily same sex attraction itself that’s primarily responsible, but rather the culture of rebelliousness that has been growing in the membership of the Church since at least the 50’s and manifested in the wholesale hijacking of the actual teachings and instructions of Vatican II into the alleged “Spirit of Vatican II” that bears no actual resemblance to the Council documents. (What B16 calls the “hermeneutic of rupture”)

What I want to know is if there is a correlation between priests who espoused “Don’t worry about all that old piety and morality stuff. Explore your world and find God in it” type worldviews and sexual impropiety/abuse. Is the incidence of abuse lower among those priests who did NOT preach disobedience and sedition (telling people contraception isn’t a sin in confession, ignoring the horrors of abortion, abolishing confession in favor of general absolution, ad libbing the mass, denigrating adoration and traditional devotions, etc)?

I hope they looked at that kind of detail. I suspect it will be telling.

I DO wonder how they came to the conclusion that homosexuality played no role at all. 85% of the victims of priests were boys. Granted, in the 70’s and early 80’s, priests would have had far greater access to boys than girls. But by the late 80’s, altar girls were as common as boys and by the late 90’s altar girls eclipse the number of boys. Yet the data on gender distribution in the earlier John Jay Study didn’t significantly change between the boy/girl victim ratio in the 80’s verus the 90’s. Mere access is not an adequate explanation. A more likely ‘cause’ explanation is rebellion. It was no small secret that there was for a time a small, but powerful cabal of sexually active homosexual priests. It seems eminently likely to me that a priest already willing to defy his Church’s teachings on one aspect of human sexuality would be at elevated chance of being willing to defy it on OTHER aspects of human sexual dignity.
 
There is an increasing number of people, including some within the Catholic Church who would have us believe that a man who has sexual relations with a male under 18, is somehow not really a homosexual.
 
The 60s and 70s were the worst decades in USA history in terms of morality. More evil was unleashed during that time, than at any other time that one can find in USA history. It is no small wonder that they concluded that the culture at large had much to do with the horrific cases of abuse. Very many other horrific things also came from that time.

The baby boomer generation is the worst in USA history (I am part of that) and we have much to answer for to today’s youth and to God.
 
irishpatrick said:
The 60s and 70s were the worst decades in USA history in terms of morality. More evil was unleashed during that time, than at any other time that one can find in USA history. It is no small wonder that they concluded that the culture at large had much to do with the horrific cases of abuse. Very many other horrific things also came from that time.

The baby boomer generation is the worst in USA history (I am part of that) and we have much to answer for to today’s youth and to God.
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I’m sure you meant to include the Civil War.
 
Hokomai said:
Having sex with a child is bad. Having sex with a child who has reached puberty is bad. I cannot understand why the Church keeps trying to point out that the victims of this abuse were in many cases post-pubescent. It is still bad.
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This is a common question that deserves a straight answer. In light of all the coverups, it is natural to suspect scapegoating as a motive.

But there are legitimate reasons to demand precision in language. In virtually ALL media reports, this is described as a ‘pedophilia crisis.’ Pedopilia is a specific term describing those who molest young children. It is well known in the field of psychology that pedophiles care little for the gender of their victims. But this well documented research simply doesn’t apply to pubescent kids, so the well know facts about pedophilia simply don’t apply to a victim pool that is pubescent and older in age! At that point, gender preferences become more pronounced amongst abusers. Identifying precisely the kind of abuser that has historically been in the priesthood is critical to preventing it from happening in the future.

I suppose we COULD just keep it simplistic. Abusing people is bad. People who abuse people shouldn’t become priests. All very much true. But not very useful for sinful humans with a vast capacity for rationalization and deception!

I understand the worry people have about even LOOKING to see if there might be a homosexual link. I think that’s too bad, because knowledge is always better than ignorance, even when there is a risk of misuse of knowledge. I tend to think that intense scrutiny of the matter would show that it isn’t “same sex attraction” that is the major risk factor, but SSA combined with an attitude that seeks to rationalize a way to normalize homosexual actions in spite of consistant catholic teaching on the matter.

But it is blatantly ignoring the issue to merely say “Well it must just be access that made 85% of the victims pubescent males since we all know there is no link between homosexuality and pedophilia.” It’s a nonsense statement because there is very LITTLE pedophilia in the recorded abuse cases.
 
Big_Ro said:
I’m sure you meant to include the Civil War.
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No, I meant exactly what I wrote. The baby boomers (I am in that group), brought us abortion, rampant fornication, rampant drug use, attacks on traditional marriage and the honoring of homosexual relations, the living and shacking-up together, incredibly high divorce rates, a pulling away from traditional faiths and Churches, latch-key children, materialism, etc., etc…

The Civil War was of course horrible into itself…yet those days simply do not compare to the true damage done to millions by the boomer generation–including over 50,000,000 slaughtered through LEGAL ABORTION–

The babies killed through abortion far exceeds the total number of citizens who lived in the USA during the Civil War days (estimates put USA population then around 35-40 million).

In addition to all that, it was during the baby generation that the vast majority of the abuse cases happend, which resulted in horrific damage to the victims and untold damage to the Church and to faithful Catholics in general.

Baby Boomers = Worst generation in history!
 
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