By Sarah Pulliam Bailey
USA Today
May 19, 2011
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2011/05/how-should-catholic-church-respond-to-sex-abuse-report/1
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A new study was released yesterday, finding that neither the celibate priesthood nor homosexuality were main factors contributing to the sex abuse crisis.
"Individual characteristics do not predict that a priest will commit sexual abuse of a minor," the researchers write. "Rather, vulnerabilities, in combination with situational stresses and opportunities, raise the risk of abuse."
The $1.8 million, five-year study was prepared by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The study suggests that the number of incidents per year increased steadily between the 1960-1970s and declined in the 1980s. Accused priests began abusing during increased job stress and social isolation, the study says, and professional counseling was not readily available.
"The rise in abuse cases in the 1960s and 1970s was influenced by social factors in society generally," the the report says. "Factors that were invariant during the time period addressed, such as celibacy, were not responsible for the increase or decline in abuse cases over this time."
The New York Times reports that the finding that fewer than 5 percent of the abusive priests exhibited behavior consistent with pedophilia is controversial.
...The report employs a definition of "prepubescent" children as those age 10 and under. Using this cutoff, the report found that only 22 percent of the priests' victims were prepubescent.
The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders classifies a prepubescent child as generally age 13 or younger. If the John Jay researchers had used that cutoff, a vast majority of the abusers' victims would have been considered prepubescent.
The majority of the victims (80%) were male, compared to national statistics that suggest girls are three times more likely to be abused than boys, the study says. The report suggests that the majority of those accused of abuse entered the priesthood before 1970.
The study was first obtained by David Gibson for Religion News Service.
The John Jay researchers take pains to credit the hierarchy for making important strides in combating child abuse â€" an assertion victim advocates will strenuously dispute â€" and they point out that society as a whole was only slowly coming to understand the nature of child abuse as U.S. dioceses were swamped with cases.
At the same time, however, researchers note the bishops' abysmal track record in so many tragic instances, and say church leadership was reflexively defensive and self-protective â€" behavior that fits a well-defined pattern of crisis management in large institutions.
On Monday, the Vatican issued guidelines bishops to comply with laws of reporting abuse accusations.
More reports come from USA TODAY, the Associated Press and the Washington Post, and Catholic News Service, which offers an illustration on the extent and the history of abuse.
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