The Washington Post
17 May 2011
By Michelle Boorstein
The largest study ever done on youth sexual abuse by Catholic clergy concludes that the scandal that became public in 2002 was a temporary problem caused by poorly trained seminarians, bishops who focused too little on victims and a permissive culture in the 1960s and 1970s that saw an increase in divorce, marijuana experimentation and robbery.
The $2 million four-year study by John Jay College of Criminal Justice found that gay priests were not more likely than heterosexual ones to abuse and that a small minority of accused priests meet the clinical definition of pedophiles.
The Washington Post saw a copy of the report, which will be publicly released Wednesday.
It has been closely watched by experts, historians and advocates for victims and accused priests. This is because John Jay was given unprecedented access by the church — which paid for about half the study — to priests’ personnel files and psychosexual testing, as well as seminary records. The subject of clergy sex abuse ignites multiple culture war flames, with various sides blaming homosexuality, celibacy, church secrecy and societal turmoil.
Supporters and critics of the church were already speaking out about the study, whose general contours researchers have publicly described over the years.
“Who else has studied child sex abuse at this level? No other organization has anything similar. If we’re really serious about keeping kids safe, other organizations have to follow suit: the public schools, the Boy Scouts, sporting organizations,” said Tom Plante, a psychologist who works with Catholic clergy and consulted the bishops for this study.
“This report misses the boat. What deserves the most scrutiny are not child sex crimes but continued clergy cover-ups of child sex crimes,” the advocacy group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said Tuesday in a statement.
The report, titled “The Causes and Contexts of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010,” characterizes the church’s response as “typically focused on the priest-abusers rather than on the victims. . . . There is little evidence that diocesan leaders met directly with victims before 2002.”
Experts generally agree that sex crimes against children have declined in recent decades, in the church and in U.S. society. The report, however, comes as details are just surfacing of a major scandal in the Philadelphia archdiocese in which about two dozen accused priests were removed earlier this year after a grand jury criticized the church for leaving them in place.
Some warned against a report that would argue too strongly that the problems of abuse and cover-up are waning.
“There is still evidence that in some places it’s not being handled in a way that suggests full compliance with higher authorities and adequate concern about children. That’s an area that still needs researching,” said David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.
Some survivors’ advocates who had not seen the full report were skeptical of the research, noting the church’s role in funding and providing data on itself.
Terence McKiernan, who runs the largest independent database of public records on accused priests, said it was wrong to portray abusers as “just nice guys who were confused by the ’60s.”
The Rev. James Martin, SJ, culture editor of America Magazine, said the report’s finding that gay priests were no more likely to abuse others than straight priests was inaccurate.
“In fact, the rise in the number of gay priests corresponds with a ‘decreased incident of abuse — not an increased incidence.’ So why have gay priests consistently been blamed for the abuse crisis? One reason is that there are so few public models of celibate gay priests.”
David Clohessy, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said: “Predictably and conveniently, the bishops have funded a report that tells them precisely what they want to hear: It was all unforeseeable, long ago, wasn’t that bad and wasn’t their fault. It gives bishops even more reasons to avoid what they desperately want to avoid — questioning celibacy, married priests, secular laws, serious reforms or their own virtually limitless power as kings in a medieval monarchy.”
The Rev. Thomas J. Reese, SJ, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center of Georgetown University, said that “those looking for a simple explanation of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church will be disappointed by the latest report.”
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DrRosemaryEileenMcHugh
“The largest study ever done on youth sexual abuse by Catholic clergy concludes that the scandal that became public in 2002 was a temporary problem” – if this is the conclusion of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, then I have to agree with David Clohessy, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, that the bishops have funded a report that tells them precisely what they want to hear and what they want everyone to believe.
I am a Catholic physician. I have met many women and men who have been sexually abused by priests in the States, in Ireland, in England, in Germany, and in Belgium. In my research, I have found that the sexual abuse of children by priests in the Roman Catholic Church is a worldwide scandal and has been occurring for centuries with no accountability asked of the predator priests by the bishops nor by the Popes, including Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.
I suppose it is understandable that clergy who are not married and have no experience of raising their own children, would put loyalty to a brother priest as more important than protecting the innocence of children. Clericalism is a distortion of the priesthood. Clergy become little princes, instead of identifying with Jesus, who was a servant-leader.
Until Pope Benedict XVI admits his huge role in allowing the priest sexual abuse of children to flourish worldwide, by cover-ups and transferring abusers from city to city and from country to country, instead of acting like a caring parent would, by calling police and removing abusers from the priesthood, his saying “sorry” carries no weight.
Sincerely, Dr Rosemary Eileen McHugh, Chicago, IL.
Today 5/18/2011 2:56:47 PM EDT
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OldUncleTom
The need to protect the shepherds (Church organization) became more important than the need to protect the sheep (parishioners). The seed of self-destruction was sown.
Today 5/18/2011 3:12:30 PM EDT
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conrad031
The next sexual abuse will be heard from the Military. We should have learned from the Churches experience but apparently did not.
Advocates of open homosexuality in the military often lament the fact that several thousand members of the military have been discharged under the 1993 law since its enactment. However, what they fail to note is that many of those discharges are actually for sexual assaults.
The military already has a serious problem with sexual assault by homosexuals. If the current law against homosexuality in the military is overturned, the problem of same-sex sexual assault in the military is sure to increase.
If the law is overturned and open homosexuals are welcomed into the military, the number of homosexuals in the armed forces can only increase-leading to a corresponding increase in same-sex sexual assaults.
Removal of the threat of discharge from the military for homosexual conduct will reduce deterrence, likely leading to more cases of sexual assault.
If homosexuals become a protected class within the military, victims will be afraid to report incidents of homosexual assault and commanders will be afraid to punish them, lest they be accused of “discrimination” or “homophobia.”
Allowing open homosexuality in the military would do nothing to enhance the readiness or effectiveness of our armed forces. On the contrary, it would clearly damage them-in part because it would increase the already serious problem of homosexual assault in the military.
Today 5/18/2011 2:36:25 PM EDT
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OldUncleTom
You are making that up, and I think you know it.
Today 5/18/2011 3:13:46 PM EDT
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dcp26851
They still don’t get it. This is one of the stupidest things I’ve read yet.
“The $2 million four-year study by John Jay College of Criminal Justice found that gay priests were not more likely than heterosexual ones to abuse and that a small minority of accused priests meet the clinical definition of pedophiles.”
What part about “child abuse is not about being homosexual” do people not get? It’s not about being gay, it’s never have been, it’s about power. Period.
Today 5/18/2011 2:33:01 PM EDT
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usapdx
Really I just do not buy it. The real damage done to the RCC was by the RCC’s administration policy to silence the truth to protect the image. What normal male would want such a unnatural life? Saint Peter, the first pope was married . Only the western rite is not married since 1100s? WHY?
Today 5/18/2011 2:23:20 PM EDT
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jfv123
One reason a relative of mine left a Catholic seminary in the mid-1970s was because so many seminarians studying to be priests were gay and were not remaining celibate while in the seminary.
Faced with a shortage of straight men joining the priesthood compared to prior generations, the bishops definitely looked the other way.
It was no surprise that an abnormaly high percentage of the abuse victims surfacing later were boys. Do the math. If five percent of the population is gay, then one would expect about 5% of the abuse victims would be boys.
The number of gays might not have increased in an absolute sense. Gays probably constituted a bigger percentage of a much smaller population of people seeking to become priests and the bishops didn’t screen them out as vigorously as in proir generations.
As their percentage increased, tolerance for gay activities by the bishops seems to have increased as well.
Priests are just like any other workforce. Employers bend or ignore old rules to adapt to work force changes.
The Church and people working for the Church are really no different than other organizations and people. History is full of human error causing problems within the Church and the Church taking steps to fix problems. This isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last time.
time and it won’t be the last time.
Today 5/18/2011 2:18:57 PM EDT
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irae
1. The plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data’.
2. Pedophilia/Pederasty do not equate to homosexuality. Shed your ignorance.
3. Moving pedophile priests from diocese to diocese and not reporting their crimes is not ‘fixing the problem’.
Today 5/18/2011 2:44:38 PM EDT
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conrad031
Read the book “Goodbye Goodmen” by Michael Rose. Your relative ran into the Gay infiltration.
Goodbye were the men who acted like your relative and we lost a Goodman.
The book depicks the sad mind of the Gay and their total addiction to sex.
Today 5/18/2011 2:44:38 PM EDT·
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msummerford
The public is not going to buy the outcome of this report, that all Pedophile Priest are gay…I think that most Pedophiles are heterosexual but most catholics have always viewed homosexual as evil. So, lets blame those evil homosexuals…..Catholic Pedophile Priest have so much power & now they have a report that says, that was then now Pedophile Priest are better trained.
Today 5/18/2011 2:17:42 PM EDT
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notindc2
Seriously??? This is the bill of goods they’re trying to sell??
Today 5/18/2011 2:12:00 PM EDT
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irae
IT’S NOT CHILD-RAPE! IT’S ‘ENHANCED CATHOLICISM’!
Today 5/18/2011 2:09:37 PM EDT
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msmithnv
Temporary problem? Like bank robbers who are temporary until they get caught.
Today 5/18/2011 2:05:50 PM EDT
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dem4life1
Temporary? Just because the kids grew up doesn’t mean the supply dwindled.
Today 5/18/2011 2:04:58 PM EDT
vicsoir1
The catholic church’s sex scandals have a history of going back centuries, if not millenia. They include the sexual encounters of popes (See Pope Alexander VI’s record, for instance) and other high officials throughout the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church’s history over the ages.
Today 5/18/2011 1:45:28 PM EDT
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areyousaying
So by playing semantics and saying there are few “pedophiles” diverts one’s attention to the fact they were “hebephiles” or “ebephiles” which makes it all ok in the words of Rick Santorum who dismisses this felony child sexual abuse as “homosexual activity with post-pubescent men”
I can’t decide what’s more pathetic – the cover ups or the stupid excuses Catholics use to divert the blame to others. They seem to have a huge problem with their own Ninth
Today 5/18/2011 1:44:44 PM EDT
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tinyjab40
A convenient report for the Catholic church. I’m glad to learn they paid for half of it.
Today 5/18/2011 1:44:31 PM EDT
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klausdmk
A federal grant from the U.S. Department of Justice provides John Jay College Criminal Justice tax money to study homosexuality and celibacy in relation to sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops allows a federal grant study to report on the conduct of the Church. Who do the Bishops listen to for guidance?
A priest is ordained by God not a church authority and a priest of God recognizes Jesus Christ as the chief priest who suffered as we do and overcame the evils of this present world. Jesus said “follow me” and Bishops and priest in the Catholic Church will be held accountable by Christ Jesus who died and arose from the dead, the first begotten in the kingdom of God and a high priest of things pertaining to God.
Today 5/18/2011 1:36:51 PM EDT
OldUncleTom
klaus, it is superstitions like yours that lead to these sorts of problems in the Church.
Churches are bodies of men (and women), however much they claim to represent Heaven. When an organization like the Roman Church awards itself the power to control Salvation or Damnation, that power is pretty absolute to a believer. The testimony that has surfaced from victims of abuse, and their families, illustrates how easy it can be to keep that abuse hidden by threats of excommunication and refusal of communion. The ability of the Church to operate outside the legal system in many countries exaggerates the temptation.
Power corrupts, and absolute Power corrupts Absolutely. Nowhere is this more true than in the spiritual realm.
Today 5/18/2011 1:49:00 PM EDT
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cprferry
The report’s claim that there’s an increase of homosexual priests since the 70s and 80s shows evidence that their definition of homosexual tendencies also changed with the times. It’s unlikely that homosexual priests were more willing to join in greater numbers in recent decades (or that the gay gene has exploded across the population).
It’s more likely that the researchers failed to adequately define this population. It’s unlikely they analyzed psycho-sexual profiles and tendencies already present in the 50s and 60s that they later defined as homosexuality after the 70s. It’s even possible that some priests that displayed those tendencies in were abusers, but never got to the point of the later 70s and 80s of displaying concrete examples of their homosexuality and thus never given the classification.
The research is suspect on this point.
Today 5/18/2011 1:30:05 PM EDT
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HookedOnThePost
A congregation who believes their late pope should be declared a saint because he was a nice guy who fought the nazis are screwed up anyway. so who cares that two million dollars were diverted from their Sunday offering baskets for this nonsensical “study”? Fools and their money are soon parted.
Today 5/18/2011 1:25:26 PM EDT
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HookedOnThePost
the church hierarchy did nothing less than steal those children’s trust in God. if there’s a hell, you can bet they’ll be permanent residents. every single church leader who knew but did not go to the police should be accused of complicity to commit child sex abuse.
Today 5/18/2011 1:11:31 PM EDT
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commonsense101
And as everyone knows, the Vatican is protecting Bernard, Cardinal Law, who fled to Italy so he could not be arraigned for being an accessory to a crimes. He’s been given a sinecure pastorship at a church in Rome where he remains. Until the Vatican returns him to the US to face justice, who can believe that the Roman Catholic Church is in any way serious about dealing with this problem.
The lasting issue is THE BISHOPS who aided, abetted, concealed and protected these felonious priests and thereby perpetrated crime upon untold crime against children. What is our justice system doing to these criminals?
Today 5/18/2011 2:21:18 PM EDT
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djah
Oddly they did not use the “clinical definition of pedophile.” They changed the age from 13 to 10, skewing the results dramatically.
The Church has still not learned that it has to face up to its direct responsibility for the pedophilia it protected. So long as John Paul is on the fast track to sainthood, Benedict sits on the throne of Peter and Bernard Law wears scarlet in the biggest church in Rome, the teaching authority of the Church on this subject is nil.
Today 5/18/2011 1:06:56 PM EDT
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mhoust
Report was going to be biased from the beginning. Any research funded by the RCC guarantees that the result is going to be favorable to the Church as it is. At worst, any negative findings are going to be minimized or downplayed, just as we see in this study.
Today 5/18/2011 1:02:58 PM EDT
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Waffle1
the catholic church: still lame.
Today 5/18/2011 12:48:28 PM EDT
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djmolter
Ask the victims if their trauma was temporary.
Today 5/18/2011 12:42:54 PM EDT
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woody36911
The study and the article both miss the point. It is not only about improperly vetted priests, gay priests, celibacy, a coverup mentality by local church bureaucrats and a papal blind eye to reports of abuse. It is about the systematic objectification of children placed under control of clergymen by conditioning in the seminaries and the churches to have antisocial sentiments as their core belief system. They were anti-pastoral. And they operated with impunity as superior beings with their ‘playthings.’
Today 5/18/2011 12:39:39 PM EDT
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Norky
See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic…
Today 5/18/2011 12:31:10 PM EDT
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irae
I feel SO much better about child-raping catholic priests now that I know that children are also raped in school. Thanks!
Today 5/18/2011 1:20:59 PM EDT
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YEAL9
In reality, Christianity/Cathocism should not exist since it is based on flawed history and theology. Without these flaws, there would be no RCC and therefore no priests and therefore no cases of priestly pedophilia. Ditto for all the other Christian sects like the Southern Baptist Convention and Seven Day Adventists where pedophilia and coverups have been a major issue. Judaism with its flawed history and theology is in the same situation. Correct the flaws and there would be no Judaism and therefore no rabbis and therefore no cases of rabbinic pedophilia.
Today 5/18/2011 12:26:51 PM EDT
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genevieve2000
what a bunch of cow manure! so, “a permissive culture in the 1960s and 1970s that saw an increase in divorce, marijuana experimentation and robbery” is the cause for these young people to be sexually abused!!!! talk about trying to lay the blame on anything else but the disfunctional church and its unnatural prohibition on priest marriages. I guess now the church is using the “chupaka” argument! Did these minions try to explain why it is happening in catholic churches more than others? Pulllease! And, I’d like to know how they collected this data that tells them that the prevalence of pedophiles is the same as in the general population! I’d like to learn about their sampling methodology and testing! OUTRAGEOUS!
Today 5/18/2011 12:24:37 PM EDT
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HookedOnThePost
my brother was molested by a priest in 1957. does that count as the 60′s? or was that still the fun-loving, clean and sexless 50′s?
Today 5/18/2011 1:15:16 PM EDT
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thebobbob
The religion of His “Love” blames it’s failings on the Summer of Love?
What unmitigated gall! The Jews killed Christ, The Earth is the center of the Universe, Divorce and birth control are sins, homosexuality is a choice, blame the hippies for pedophile priests. Wrong again!
Today 5/18/2011 12:22:28 PM EDT
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saami
You have to be kidding! Just what constitutes temporary? 10 years, 20 years, 30 years??????
Today 5/18/2011 12:08:59 PM EDT
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presto668
Well, when you’re dealing with an organization that’s 2000 years old, “temporary” could be a few hundred years.
Today 5/18/2011 3:24:49 PM EDT
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johngreenwood1982
Priest sex abuse scandal was temporary problem…After those blasted kids started blabbing, right priest? Everything was going swimmingly until those dang kids grew up or started crying about the bad touch? It must be good to have such a strong card to play to prevent much harm coming to those “holy” men that do harm. You have done horrible things to kids, what to you have to say for yourself? POPE, I have a POPE card to play. And he’ll perform the priest shuffle. Pathetic.
Today 5/18/2011 12:00:45 PM EDT
YEAL9
Why did today’s pope, prelates, preachers and rabbis, so focused on society’s se-xual sins, lose sight of clerical se-xual sins?
”
FEAR, SHAME and GUILT and COVER IT ALL UP!!!
Obviously ordination in any religion is not assurance of good behavior !!!!!
Neither is coronation!!! e.g. Henry VIII, King David.
Neither is marriage as 50% of those men convicted of pedophilia are married.
Neither is being elected president of the USA!! e.g. Billy “I did not have se-x with that girl” Clinton, John “Marilyn Monroe” Kennedy”.
Neither is possessing super athletic skill!!! e.g. Tiger “I am so sorry for getting caught” Woods.
Neither is being an atheist or pagan since pedophilia is present in all walks of life.
If someone is guilty of a crime in this litany of “neithers” they should be or should have been penalized as the law dictates to include jail terms for pedophiliacs (priests, rabbis, evangelicals, boy scout leaders, married men/women), divorce for adultery (Clinton, Kennedy, Woods), jail terms for obstruction of justice (Clinton, Cardinal Law, Pope Benedict? ) and the death penalty or life in prison for murder (“Kings David and Henry VIII).
Today 5/18/2011 11:59:16 AM EDT
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Draesop
I am a grandfather now but I can remember many years ago when I attended a Roman Catholic Elementary School. The Nuns (sisters) were all European, there were the Fathers and the Brothers whom were also European in a small Caribbean island. While maturing in that part of the world there were persistent stories of homosexual priests. There were some that were allegedly quite heterosexual who were said to have difficulty keeping the vows of celibacy. Pedophilia was a societal practice back then but it did not have the criminality that was deserved. It is now a criminal act. Much like rape, it has been moved out of the “boys will be boys” nonsense that must have protected the IMF Bank fellow for much of his life so far. That there have been pedophiles in the Roman Catholic Church hierachy of priests is no longer disputable. They may try to pretty it up until their faces turn blue. They can invoke diets, music, overwork, the devil and any imaginable hocus pocus but their structure will still harbor and promote pedophiles within their system. Homosexuality is another matter that is part of the currently normal human sexual spectrum. Like heterosexuals they need to keep the vows which they make, have them changed or just change their jobs. Pedophiles need to be jailed until a relaiable method of modifying their criminal and violent acts to children is identified. Rapists also need to be identified and processed.
Today 5/18/2011 11:48:46 AM EDT
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crustyone
There was nothing too normal in the matter of the spectrum which you mentioned, and yes, you are correct about suggesting they change jobs.