Report Finds Many Factors in Church Abuse, UPI, May 18, 2011

Report Finds Many Factors in Church Abuse

UPI
May 18, 2011

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/05/18/Report-finds-many-factors-in-church-abuse/UPI-46351305747878/

WASHINGTON, May 18 (UPI) -- The Catholic child sex scandals have many causes, but celibacy and homosexuality are not among them, a church-sponsored report said Wednesday.

The study, "Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010," was carried out by researchers at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York at the behest of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The researchers found that clerical abuse of minors began rising in the mid-1960s and declined sharply from the mid-1980s (though often exposed decades later), and that the millennium-old celibacy rule was in effect throughout, so it could not be blamed.