Sexual abuse of youths and children in the U.S. by Roman Catholic priests has been quietly
discussed for decades. A series of books on the topic was published
starting during the 1990s, and continuing today. But it was only in early 2002 that a moral panic surfaced, alleging
widespread child and youth sexual abuse by priests. The little data that is available seems to indicate that
the abusers represent a very small percentage of the total priesthood. Further,
very few of those priests who do abuse are actually pedophiles, as
the media often reports. Rather they are hebephiles -- adult priests
with a homosexual or bisexual orientation, and who are also sexually attracted to post-pubertal males.
Their victims are teenage males who are
under the age of 18.
It is important to keep in mind that the vast majority of priests, with a
heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual orientation, do not molest or sexually
abuse young people.
What the media often says, compared with reality:
During the first few months of 2002, revelations of
pedophilia, and hebephilia among some priests in the Roman Catholic
church spread like wildfire across the U.S. The media gave the impression that:
Most of the abusing priests were pedophiles -- molesting little
children.
Actually, most of the criminal acts were by hebephiles -- engaging
in sexual activity with post-pubertal, 13 to 17 year old young men.
That many priests abuse children.
Actually, the vast majority of Roman Catholic clergy are
either celibate, or married, or discretely engaged in sexual behavior with other adults.
There is general agreement that only a few percentage of
the clergy actually abuse children sexually. The U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops released a
national study in 2004-FEB which concluded that about 4% of all
U.S. priests since 1950 have been accused of sexual abuse of
children. However:
There are probably many victims who have remained silent and
not come forward to accuse their abuser(s).
There are probably many adults who have come forward to
accuse priests, who have false recovered memories of abuse that
never happened.
There may be some adults who knowingly falsely accuse
innocent priests of abuse in order to collect compensation.
An accurate estimate will probably never be known.
A massive amount of abuse is now going on in the Roman Catholic
church.
The data that appears in the media often reflects allegations of
abuse which have accumulated over the past forty years. The number of
cases involving allegations of recent abuse will be a small fraction of the total
that is now being reported.
Priests abuse at a per-capita rate that is much greater than for the
general population.
This is probably true, even if for no other reason that all Roman
Catholic priests
are currently male, and adult males have a much higher abuse rate than females.
The percentage of Roman Catholic priests who abuse children and
youths is much greater than for other Christian and non-Christian
religious leaders (gurus, imams, ministers, pastors, priests, priestesses,
rabbis, etc.).
This may or may not be true. No reliable data exists. Even as media
articles in the first few months of 2002 highlighted abuse by priests
within the Catholic Church, a former Episcopal priest was convicted of
molesting a 14-year-old boy, a Baptist pastor from South Carolina was
starting a 60 year prison center for molesting 23 children, another
Baptist pastor was dismissed from his church in upstate New York over
allegations of abuse, a pastor in DeKalb, GA, was found guilty of 25
charges of molestation of a male teen-aged church member, and an
Orthodox rabbi was about to go on trial for groping two teenage girls.
What percentage of Roman Catholic priests abuse young people?
Nobody really knows.
Nobody even knows how many adults in general sexually
abuse youth and adults. A figure of 2% is often mentioned. However this is
really just a guess.
Frederick S. Berlin is the director of the National
Institute for the Study, Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Trauma, and a
widely published author on sexual disorders. He stated in an interview: "There
is no good data either from the general population or from the priesthood about
numbers of pedophiles or people who have a vulnerability that increases their
risk to children. The issue of sexuality, particularly of people who may have
unusual kinds of sexual cravings, has been one that society has tended to sweep
under the carpet. Getting that data is terribly important, but as of now I know
of no systematic surveys that would allow us to come to any firm conclusions."
1
The Rev. Thomas Doyle, a priest and canonical lawyer said
that "The bishops have resisted attempts to do studies on this, and the
Vatican is death on any empirical, scientific study on the celibacy or sexuality
of the priesthood." 2
The Rev. Stephen Rossetti, is a
priest and psychologist who has specialized in this area. He has suggested that
the records of church counseling centers would contain a great deal of
information that would help shine light on abuse by priests. Centers such as St.
Luke's Institute in Silver Spring MD; St. Michael's Paraclete Center outside St.
Louis, MO; St. John Vianney Center in Downingtown, PA.; the Institute of Living
in Hartford, CT; and Southdown Hospital near Toronto, ON Canada treat hundreds of
priests for various psychological problems. However, the church has refused to
conduct such a study. 14
Rev. James J. Gill is a Jesuit priest and psychiatrist who heads the
Christian Institute for the Study of Human Sexuality in Chicago, IL. He
said: "When the question comes up, should we do a study of priests and how
many offenders have there been, what was the nature of the offense, what was
their training, who were the victims, what treatment did the offenders get, what
was the rate of recidivism -- it's all researchable, but the bishops fear you
keep the issue alive by doing the research. They fear that the press will get
hold of it and come to them and say, 'How many were there in your diocese?' They
just don't want to get into that." A complicating factor is that each
diocese operates independently of the rest of the Church in the U.S., and
reports directly to the Vatican. 14
Some estimates on the percent of abusers:
Philip Jenkins, is a professor of history and religious studies at
Penn State University, and has written a book on the topic. 3
He estimates that 2% of priests sexually abuse youth and children.
4
Richard Sipe is a psychotherapist and former priest, who has studied
celibacy and sexuality in the priesthood for four decades. He has authored
three books on the topic. 5 By extrapolating from his 25
years of interviews of 1,500 priests and others, he estimates that 6%
of priests abuse. Of these, 4% abuse teens, aged 13 to 17; 2% abuse pre-pubertal
children. 4
Sylvia M. Demarest, a lawyer from Texas has been tracking accusations
against priests since the the mid-1990s. By 1996, she had identified 1,100
priests who had been accused of molesting children. She predicts that when she updates
the list, the total will exceed 1,500 names. This represents about 2.5% of the approximately 60,000 men who have been active
priests in the U.S. since 1984. It is important to realize that these are
accused priests; the allegations have not been evaluated in a trial. Also, there
is no way to judge what proportion of abusive priests are on her list. It
may include 40% or fewer; she may have found 90% or more.
Columnist Ann Coulter claimed,
without citing references, that there are only 55 "exposed abusers" in
a population of 45,000 priests. This is an abuse rate of 0.12%.
6
Various news services reported that 200 Roman Catholic priests in the
Philippines have been investigated for "sexual misconduct and abuses"
over the past two decades. That would represent almost 3% of the
total population of about 7,000 priests. However, it appears that
misconduct includes many offenses, from child abuse to rape to keeping
adult mistresses. 15
A survey of child and youth sexual abuse
within the church issued in 2004-FEB estimates that four percent of the
110,000 priests who served between 1950 and 2002 were abusive.
More details.
It is important to keep one's eye on the forest and not on the trees. Even
if, as one researcher estimates, six percent of priests sexually abuse youth or
children, then that still leaves an average of almost 19 priests out of every 20
who are non-abusive.
Sponsored link:
How many young people are molested by the average abusive priest?
Again, nobody knows for certain.
Priests have freer access to many children than does the average male. His
position of authority and trust can facilitate abuse. Thus the number of abused
young people per abusive priest may well be larger than for the average
molester.
William Reid has written that "careful studies have
indicated...that child molesters commit an average of sixty offenses for every
incident that comes to public attention." 7 But Thomas Fox
estimates that the "average pedophile priest abuses 285 victims."
8
Who are the victims of abusive priests?
The general consensus is that the vast majority of priests do not abuse young
people. Among those who do, most fall within the following definitions:
Abusive pedophiles who have a heterosexual orientation and are
sexually attracted to pre-pubertal girls, less commonly to boys, and
sometimes to both boys and girls. They often have sexual feelings to children
of a particular age group -- e.g. 7 and 8 year olds.
Abusive hebephiles who are priests with a
homosexual orientation. They are sexually attracted to post-pubertal young
men, aged 14 to 17 years. 9 Most are also
probably also attracted to adult males.
Nobody knows, with any degree of accuracy, what percentage of priests fall
into each category. One can only guess from the cases that are seen in cases.
Columnist Ann Coulter claimed,
without citing references, that "It is a fact that the vast majority of
the abuser priests – more than 90 percent – are accused of molesting teen-age
boys." She criticizes The New York Times for intentionally
suppressing the gender of the alleged victims by using gender-neutral
terms such as the "teen-ager," the "former student," the "victim"
and the "accuser." 5
Donald Cozzens, former vicar of priests at the Diocese of Cleveland, OH, wrote
in the year 2000 about his experience in the Midwest: "As a group, [child sexual] abusers tend
to be married men who prey on girls, although many pedophiles abuse both girls
and boys. Our respective diocesan experience revealed that roughly 90 percent of
priest abusers targeted teenage boys as their victims. ... Relatively little
attention has been paid to this phenomenon by church authorities. Perhaps it is
feared that it will call attention to the disproportionate number of gay
priests. While homosexually oriented people are no more likely to be drawn to
misconduct with minors than straight people, our own experience was clear and, I
believe, significant. Most priest offenders, we vicars agreed, acted out against
teenage boys." 10,11 More recently, in 2002, he quoted other
estimates that "90 percent to 95 percent, and some estimates say as high as
98 percent of the victims of clergy acting out [are] teenage boys."
10
Bill Blakemore of ABC NEWS.com stated in an online interview on an ABC
message board: "The vast majority of cases that have come to light in
this crisis, somewhere between 90-98 percent apparently, are not
technically pedophilia because they are cases of homosexual abuse of
teenage boys aged 13-17." 12 He probably picked up
the data from Donald Cozzens' writing.
It is worth noting that if the age of consent for homosexual activity were lowered
to the age of 16, as it is in many jurisdictions, then most of the criminal acts
by abusive priests would disappear.
Most charges by the police against abusive priests would disappear. Cases of hebephilia would still represent an ethical quagmire, however. They would
be a gross violation of the priest's ordination vows and would be
an extremely harmful experience to most of the teens. For example, in
Kingston, ON, Canada where our office is located, an Anglican church
organist at St. George's Cathedral was convicted of sexually abusing many dozens
of young children and youths. Many people believe that two suicides resulted
from these criminal acts.
How does abuse by Catholic and Protestant compare?
You guessed it! Nobody knows with any accuracy.
"Gary Schoener, a
psychologist whose Walk-In Counseling Center in Minneapolis has consulted with
more than 1,000 victims of clerical sexual abuse, believes that the percentage
of abusers is no higher among Catholic priests than among Protestant ministers.
But in his experience, he said, priests have more victims because they operate
longer before they are caught." 14
Some people view celibacy as an unnatural lifestyle. They speculate
that a higher percentage of priests are abusers than are Protestant
ministers and pastors, because of the Catholic church's celibacy requirement. The implication is that if celibacy were made optional, then
priests could marry and wouldn't abuse youths and children.
Most Protestant clergy are free to
marry, and most heterosexual ministers and pastors do marry. Unfortunately, we have
been unable to find reliable information about the level of abuse among
Protestant clergy.
There also does not seem to be any reliable information about
the level of child molestation among those Roman Catholic priests who are
married. Thus any abusive pedophile
and hebephile
data would be of such low accuracy as to be useless. (The existence of married priests within the Roman
Catholic Church is a surprise to many. When the Episcopal Church decided to ordain females,
about 95 Episcopal ministers in the U.S. were so distressed by the idea of sharing
the priesthood with women that some converted to Roman Catholicism in order to
remain in a purely male priesthood. The church allowed them
to remain married.)
Comparison of abuse in the Catholic Church and U.S. public schools:
A U.S. Department of Education report issued in 2004 examined a number of
American studies into the prevalence of sexual misconduct by school staff.
They found that between 3.5% and 50.3% of students are targets of educator
sexual misconduct sometime during their school career. They found that
teachers, coaches, substitute teachers were the most common offenders.
If this report is accurate, then sexual abuse by priests in the Roman
Catholic church, and by other clergy, appears to pale in comparison with the
abuse being experienced by children and youths in the public schools. 16
What does the future hold?
Bishop Thomas Gumbelton of Detroit has said that, in the past, Catholic
seminaries had not adequately prepared students for a lifetime of
celibacy. They had not taught students how to integrate their sexuality.
13
Barbara Walters of ABC's 20/20 has stated that "...the [Catholic]
church has made dramatic changes in the last decade in the way it
addresses sexual issues in seminary. Instead of denying or repressing
sexual desire, seminaries now use progressive psychology to help men deal
openly with the once taboo topics of sexual attraction as well as
homosexuality. Seminarians, for example, learn how to channel their sexual
energy, and that it is alright to embrace their homosexual orientation.
They are taught that intimate, nonsexual friendships may help keep them
from breaking their vow of celibacy. " 13
It will
take decades to determine the effectiveness of these sex-ed programs in
preventing sexual abuse.
Alan Cooperman, "Abuse Problem Is Clouded by A Lack of Data:
Opinion Split on Whether Molestation Is More Prevalent in Catholic Clergy,"
Washington Post, 2002-MAR-10, at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Philip Jenkins, "Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a contemporary
crisis," Oxford University Press, (2001).
Read reviews or order this book
Robyn Suriano, "Pedophilia: Psychologists struggle to treat it
without fully understanding its causes." Published in the
Seattle Times, 2002-APR-28.
William H. Reid, The Psychiatric Times, 1988-APR-24. Quoted in:
A. W. Richard Sipe, "Sex, Priests and Power: Anatomy of a Crisis,"
Brunner/Mazel, (1995).
Thomas C. Fox, "Sex and power issues expand clergy-lay rift,"
National Catholic Reporter, 1992-NOV-13, Pages 17 to 19.
Joe Fitzgerald, "Priest fears gays in ranks pose threat to
Church," Boston Herald, 2002-MAR-6, at:
http://www2.bostonherald.com/
Father Donald Cozzens, "The Changing Face of the Priesthood,"
quoted in "Meet the Press transcript," ' ABC News' Meet
the Press, 2002-MAR-31, at:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/731454.asp
Alan Cooperman, "Sex abuse in clergy stymies scientists Lack of
data thwarts efforts to gauge depth of the problem," Washington Post,
2002-MAR-24, at:
http://detnews.com/2002/religion/
