Posted on 04/14/2003 12:04:43 PM PDT by WaveThatFlag
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While pleased that the Catholic Church is taking the problem of pedophilia seriously, an international panel of experts told Vatican officials that dismissing every priest guilty of sexually abusing a minor is not the way to handle the problem.
Eight internationally recognized psychiatric and medical experts were invited to lead an April 2-5 symposium at the Vatican.
The Pontifical Academy for Life, which often sponsors scientific conferences on medical and ethical topics, organized the meeting. It was attended by officials from the Vatican Secretariat of State and the congregations for doctrine, clergy, Catholic education, religious and bishops. Several priests and nuns directly involved in treating offenders also were invited; they included Father Stephen Rossetti, president of St. Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Md., and Franciscan Father Canice Connors, president of the U.S. Conference of Major Superiors of Men and former president of St. Luke's.
The eight experts, none of whom are Catholic, came from Germany, the United States and Canada. Several of them had presented papers at the 2002 international conference of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, which was attended by a psychiatrist who is a member of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
According to participants at the Vatican meeting, the experts criticized "zero tolerance" policies for all priests who had ever sexually abused a minor. Such policies, they said, ignore the difficulty of determining the future risk posed by the offender and may actually increase the risk.
The experts said that "by letting them go, you may be unleashing them on the general public" without the supervision and support systems that may have helped them control their negative behavior, said a Vatican participant who did not want to be named. Dismissal also may increase stress, which is another risk factor.
The participant said the experts told Vatican officials that banning homosexuals from the priesthood would not solve the problem because although homosexuality is one of many "risk factors" it is not the cause of pedophilia.
He said he hoped the experts' remarks would quash a proposal being studied by the Congregation for Catholic Education to discourage the admittance of homosexual men into seminaries; the congregation is responsible for seminaries as well as Catholic schools.
Dr. Martin P. Kafka, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and president of the Massachusetts chapter of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, was the only U.S. expert invited.
Kafka, who gave presentations on the sexual molestation of adolescents and on the possibility of treating sexual offenders with pharmaceuticals, said he believes the U.S. bishops' policy of dismissing every offender from the priesthood "is a real mistake."
"It is only in the United States that that policy has been taken," he said, while in Europe and Canada provisions have been made to allow some offenders to continue in the priesthood while excluding all contact with minors.
"Many of these men are not your typical sex offenders," he said; they have only one or two victims, their crime involved "above clothing molestation" and the incidents occurred 15 to 30 years ago.
"With treatment and supervision, you can help those perpetrators," he told Catholic News Service.
"You cannot cover up the problem, and changes must be made" in the way the church handles the cases, "but each case must be dealt with individually and you must see who is motivated for treatment."
Kafka said the key issue in Catholic seminaries is whether or not students have a mature understanding of their own sexuality.
"Data suggests that the overwhelming majority of adult men who molest children -- boys or girls -- are heterosexual," he said. "With the molestation of adolescent boys, the incidence of adult male homosexuality is higher, but it is not one to one."
Homosexuality is just one of many risk factors, he said, and the fact that "most adult male homosexuals do not molest children or adolescents" means homosexuals should not be banned from the priesthood out of fear they may molest someone.
Another Vatican participant said a key point made by the experts confirmed the general stance taken by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is that instances of clerical sexual abuse must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
"There are cases which demand the dismissal from the clerical state because he is using his office to abuse," the participant said.
When a priest is dismissed, however, the church should ensure that other means exist for keeping the priest under observation, he said. Such means include state-mandated registries of sex offenders.
Dr. Jorg M. Fegert, medical director of the pediatric psychiatric clinic at the University of Ulm, Germany, said he was the only expert invited to discuss the impact of sexual abuse on children.
"I made a plea for a careful discussion of the responsibility toward the victims," he told CNS. "It is important not just to look at what to do with priests, but to ensure the children get help."
Fegert, who has worked with child victims of sexual abuse for the past 10 years, told Vatican officials that in cases where the abuse is reported "the children undergo an average of five to seven interrogations and interviews by police and psychologists, which can traumatize them even more."
"We must develop procedures to protect children while trying to get the truth," he said.
Fegert said that although he is not a Catholic, in the wake of the U.S. sex abuse scandal, he had written to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the doctrinal congregation, telling him, "It is important not only to have policies for priests, but to learn from the scientific studies and to care for the children."
"There will be a number of priests who were abused as children," he said. "If you offer help to the child victims, maybe you can prevent some abuse in the future."
OTOH, I do not favor laicizing a priest who has not acted on -- and who seeks help with resisting -- a sexual desire for minors. In such cases, Penguin Island strikes me as prudent, just and merciful for everyone. The Missionaries of Charity run a tight ship and still seem to be Wiccan-free, so they'd be my first choice as caretakers.
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