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	Unsettled Church Scandal Toledo Blade May 20, 2011 http://www.toledoblade.com/Editorials/2011/05/20/Unsettled-church-scandal.html The comprehensive report on the causes and context of the clerical sex- abuse scandal that has rocked the U.S. Roman Catholic Church won't settle a thing. The pain, suspicion, and anger directed at the church's hierarchy won't begin to subside until the culture of a church leadership that is adverse to transparency and accountability changes. The largest study ever conducted on why American priests abused minors for decades shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, but it will be. Trust is the reason. The five-year-study was commissioned by the nation's Catholic bishops, who supplied the data and paid half of the estimated $1.8 million it cost to produce the report. Furthermore, the findings by researchers at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City support the contention by U.S. bishops that the social and sexual turmoil of the 1960s and 1970s, in conjunction with insufficient seminary training and inadequate emotional support for priests, was to blame for the rise in the number of abusive priests. The New York Times called it the "blame Woodstock" explanation. The study dispels arguments that homosexuality, celibacy, or pedophilia had any significant bearing on child sex crimes by priests. It concludes that opportunity and situational stresses, more than predisposition, led to the abuse. Yet as the Times notes, the study rejects the designation "pedophile priest" by defining prepubescent children as those 10 years old and younger. If researchers at Jay College had used the American Psychiatric Association's definition of prepubescent as generally 13 years old or younger, a large majority of the victims would have been considered prepubescent and their priests abusers may well have fit the pedophile profile. Adding to the distrust of anything done on behalf of the hierarchical church is news in recent months of a major scandal in the Philadelphia archdiocese, where about two dozen priests suspected of sexual abuse apparently were allowed to continue serving in the ministry. A newly released Vatican policy that continues to delegate ultimate authority to bishops to deal with clerical abuse allegations and insists prelates are answerable only to the pope, doesn't help. As long as the American Catholic hierarchy stokes the perception that protecting the institution is more important than protecting the vulnerable or healing the wounded, the scandal is unsettled.
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