Posted on 11/16/2006 9:54:57 AM PST by presidio9
The US Roman Catholic Church has asked a criminology school to delve into the darkest pages of its history by probing the causes of a priest sex abuse scandal.
At a meeting due to end Thursday in the eastern city of Baltimore, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to disburse 335,000 dollars to fund the first three phases of a study by New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
"It will be a groundbreaking study, never done before in the US, nor in the world," Bishop Gregory Aymond, who chairs the Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People, told AFP.
"We don't know what would come out of it, but we are going to tell the truth," said Aymond, of Austin, Texas.
In 2002, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice had made a list of complaints and pedophilia cases in the US Catholic Church since 1985, when one of the first scandals came to light with the case of a Louisiana priest.
The university will now look into the "social and historical context" of sex abuse to see if such cases are more frequent in the Church than in the rest of society, notably in schools and youth clubs, Aymond said.
The Church wants to "look at what is unique" in the priest sex abuse crisis, he said.
The first part of the study would be completed in 2008 and made public, although the names of suspected priests would be omitted.
In the second part, the university will evaluate the Church leadership's response to sex abuse cases.
"We want to see where we failed and made some mistakes, and learn from those who handled it well," Aymond said.
The study will also paint a psychological profile of pedophiliac priests by reviewing cases in treatment centers.
The review will aim to show "to what extent is a priest sexual abuser profile the same as the psychological profile of the non-priests who are sex offenders," Aymond said.
The university will also interview abuse victims and examine education at seminaries over the decades.
The majority of priests accused of sex abuse were trained in the 1960s and 1970s in seminaries where psychological tests and sexuality education have since been introduced.
A final phase of the study will make proposals on how to prevent sex abuse and help victims.
"Our goal is to ascertain the causes of the clergy sexual abuse crisis and if we need to change any method we have now," said Teresa Kettlekamp, the executive director of the bishops conference's Office of Child and Youth Protection, which was created in 2002, in the wake of the sex abuse scandal.
But the study would also be useful to schools and youth groups, Church officials said.
"The pathology of abusing children isn't unique; it's a societal problem," Kettlekamp said.
"We are hoping it will be a big, big help to the society in general," she said.
In other words, adult men who are attracted to teenage boys would no longer be attracted to teenage boys if they were encouraged to marry adult women?
What an imbecilic statement.
Untrue.
First, this thesis is illogical. Homosexually oriented Catholic priests are required to be celibate, just as heterosexual Catholic priests are required to be celibate. Logically, celibacy should present an equal barrier to the priesthood for both.
Secondly, it's been pretty well documented that some homosexual priests have deliberately screened out orthodox heterosexual men from the seminaries, using the mechanism of psychological evaluations. See the book, "Good Bye, Good Men."
Thirdly, seminaries are overflowing in Africa and other poor nations. There is a dearth of priestly vocations in Western nations largely because of our materialistic culture.
Having more homosexuals in priestly positions only increases the probability that more illicit homosexual acts will result, even though the vast majority of priests will not commit sexual acts. You need only a few to discredit the entire priesthood.
True.
Celibacy has its roots in medieval thinking and has no origin in early Christianity.
Unless you count the statements of Jesus and St. Paul which advocate celibacy for those who can accept it. The Catholic Church had better smarten up or it will be destroyed by celibacy.
Well, celibacy has been around in various forms within the Church for over 2000 years, and the Church continues to grow.
Celibacy isn't a doctrine, by the way, it's a discipline, thus subject to review and possible removal (although this is highly unlikely, admittedly).
Now, as for the point of "celibacy has consequences", it only has consequences insomuch as some "cannot control themselves", thus, St. Paul instructs us, "they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion".
IOW, clearly what has happened with the pedophile priests is that they never should have been priests to begin with, and indeed (since most abuse was same sex) should have sought council for their addiction to the disorder known as homosexuality.
This however, does not show a negative "consequence" to celibacy; it simply shows that some in the priesthood were improperly ordained, or really, should never have sought the priesthood in the first place.
P.S. Simply because some priests may have been ordained that shouldn't have, that doesn't show that the Church is a failure, as a whole corporate body. It just shows that the Church is comprised of fallable human beings; this does not equate to the Church as a whole being corrupt though. Just a disclaimer for anyone who may hasten to draw that conclusion.
How did St. Paul?
The outward expected behavior of Catholic priests provides a very good cover for someone who would like to conceal homosexuality and the position provides access to susceptible victims, over whom the priest has authority and deep knowledge of that victim's inner struggles. It is these aspects that attract the perverts; not the celibacy, but the presumption of celibacy that priests have.
N.B. I believe the vast majority of Catholic priests are not of this kind. I also believe that their kind are overrepresented in the Catholic priesthood vs the overall population, mainly because of tolerance and abetting of the behavior by superiors. Cardinal Mahoney et. al. should be in prison for criminal conspiracy and accessory after the fact.
I'm not joking. This problem of molesting teenage boys has been with the church ever since celibacy became a requirement. Only today is the truth coming out. It has gone on for centuries but was covered up because in the past no one would believe that a priest could do such a thing. If you spoke up and made a charge you would be persecuted, called a liar and discredited. The power of the church would come down on you like a hammer.Having gone to Catholic Schools all my life I can state that a majority of priests were odd balls and feminized.They are not mature men.
Excellent post.
Agreed. Homosexuality is more complicated than that.
I particularly like this article on the subject. It seems to cover all aspects in a nicely balanced, sensitive way.
**************
From The Holy See:
"The first assertion we still make is that priestly celibacy is relevant because our Lord Jesus Christ is relevant who, consecrated Supreme and Eternal Priest by the Father, chose to live his priesthood in chastity and celibacy. We cannot forget, Pope Paul VI states in the encyclical Sacerdotalis coelibatus, that the Son of God, who assumed a perfect human nature and raised marriage to the dignity of a sacrament, remained throughout his own earthly life in a state of perfect virginity, to signify his total dedication to the service of God and the human race.1"
They can and do. Talk to one and find out. Experienced priests know more about marriage than most people, since they speak with hundreds of married couples and know their deepest secrets, even the ones spouses keep from each other.
Show me eveidence that Paul was celibate. The Bible does not say one way or the other.
The damage may be cause by longing for what one cannot have and by idealiizing what one cannot have. Marriage is great, but do not many men feel equally oppressed by the need to be faithful to one woman for forty years? Staying faithful is staying faithful, and that is "impossible" for many men.
I've never understood this line of reasoning some critics of the Church use against the Priesthood. Are you saying that celibacy wasn't around at all for the first 1000 years of Christianity?
Of course you aren't. But then you make a leap, when you say, "Celibacy is, of course, something someone should do before they are married, but that doesn't mean it's ok to NEVER get married!"
That is, in effect, what you are saying. You are saying that if a man or woman chooses to simply not get married, but yet lives a chaste life, that's somehow wrong, despite the other Scriptures posted on this thread that show St. Paul clearly praising those who choose a celibate life.
Now, at this point, you may say, "I never said it's wrong for someone to simply live a chaste life, but it's wrong for PREISTS to do it". That's really the only response I can see anyone making. But really, that response makes no sense either.
Are you aware that some of the apostles in fact most were married. Then why does the church require it. It should be optional.
Thank you.
How did you come upon this information? Are you omniscient?
If "no one would believe that a priest could do such a thing," why were priests separated from confessors by a screen?
Were they married before or after they became Apostles?
I guess Jesus' example should count for something.
Ya Think?!?
;)
Smaller families.
A large percentage of American young men are only sons.
Many of them are only children.
In the old days when a family had three or four or five sons, one son going off to war or to the missions was less heartrending.
Even if the unthinkable happened in war you at least had other children to console you in your grief.
Likewise, if your son became a priest you had other sons who would carry on the family name.
Nowadays, parents with one son are much more likely to actively agitate against a military career or a priestly vocation because they have invested everything in one young man and they want to have grandchildren.
When Catholics obey the moral law regarding contraception we will have priests again.
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