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<DIV class=left>Here is a classic case of "It's not my fault, the devil
(conditions) made me do it."</DIV>
<DIV class=left> </DIV>
<DIV class=left>Credibility of the Catholic Church hierarchy with respect
to child sexual abuse by priests and other officials of the church:
<STRONG><FONT color=#ff0000 size=7>ZERO!</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV class=left> </DIV>
<DIV class=left> </DIV>
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<DIV class=timestamp>May 17, 2011</DIV>
<DIV class=kicker></DIV>
<H1><NYT_HEADLINE type=" " version="1.0">Church Report Cites Social Tumult in
Priest Scandals</NYT_HEADLINE></H1><NYT_BYLINE>
<H6 class=byline>By <A class=meta-per title="More Articles by Laurie Goodstein"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/laurie_goodstein/index.html?inline=nyt-per"
rel=author>LAURIE GOODSTEIN</A></H6></NYT_BYLINE><NYT_TEXT>
<DIV id=articleBody><NYT_CORRECTION_TOP></NYT_CORRECTION_TOP>
<P>A five-year study commissioned by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to
provide a definitive answer to what caused the church’s sexual abuse crisis has
concluded that neither the all-male celibate priesthood nor homosexuality were
to blame. </P>
<P>Instead, the report says, the abuse occurred because priests who were poorly
prepared and monitored, and were under stress, landed amid the social and sexual
turmoil of the 1960s and ’70s. </P>
<P>Known occurrences of sexual abuse of minors by priests rose sharply during
those decades, the report found, and the problem grew worse when the church’s
hierarchy responded by showing more care for the perpetrators than the victims.
</P>
<P>The “blame Woodstock” explanation has been floated by bishops since the
church was engulfed by scandal in the United States in 2002 and by Pope Benedict
XVI after it erupted in Europe in 2010. </P>
<P>But this study is likely to be regarded as the most authoritative analysis of
the scandal in the Catholic Church in America. The study, initiated in 2006, was
conducted by a team of researchers at the <A class=meta-org
title="More articles about John Jay College of Criminal Justice"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/j/john_jay_college_of_criminal_justice/index.html?inline=nyt-org">John
Jay College of Criminal Justice</A> in New York City at a cost of $1.8 million.
About half was provided by the bishops, with additional money contributed by
Catholic organizations and foundations. The National Institute of Justice, the
research agency of the United States Department of Justice, supplied about
$280,000. </P>
<P>The report was to be released Wednesday by the <A class=meta-org
title="More articles about United States Conference of Catholic Bishops"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_states_conference_of_catholic_bishops/index.html?inline=nyt-org">United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops</A> in Washington, but the Religion News
Service published an account of the report on <A
href="http://www.religionnews.com/index.php?/rnstext/exclusive_no_easy_answers_to_catholic_abuse_scandal/">its
Web site</A> on Tuesday. A copy of the report was also obtained by The New York
Times. The bishops have said they hope the report will advance the understanding
and prevention of child sexual abuse in society at large. </P>
<P>The researchers concluded that it was not possible for the church, or for
anyone, to identify abusive priests in advance. Priests who abused minors have
no particular “psychological characteristics,” “developmental histories” or mood
disorders that distinguished them from priests who had not abused, the
researchers found. </P>
<P>Since the scandal broke, conservatives in the church have blamed gay priests
for perpetrating the abuse, while liberals have argued that the all-male,
celibate culture of the priesthood was the cause. This report will satisfy
neither flank. </P>
<P>The report notes that homosexual men began entering the seminaries “in
noticeable numbers” from the late 1970s through the 1980s. By the time this
cohort entered the priesthood, in the mid-1980s, the reports of sexual abuse of
minors by priests began to drop and then to level off. If anything, the report
says, the abuse decreased as more gay priests began serving the church. </P>
<P>Many more boys than girls were victimized, the report says, not because the
perpetrators were gay, but simply because the priests had more access to boys
than to girls, in parishes, schools and extracurricular activities. </P>
<P>In one of the most counterintuitive findings, the report says that fewer than
5 percent of the abusive priests exhibited behavior consistent with pedophilia,
which it defines as a “psychiatric disorder that is characterized by recurrent
fantasies, urges and behaviors about prepubescent children. </P>
<P>“Thus, it is inaccurate to refer to abusers as ‘pedophile priests,’ ”
the report says. </P>
<P>That finding is likely to prove controversial, in part because 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. </P>
<P>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. </P>
<P>The report, “The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic
Priests in the United States, 1950-2002,” is the second produced by researchers
at John Jay College. The first, on the “nature and scope” of the problem, was
released in 2004. </P>
<P>Even before seeing it, victims advocates attacked the report as suspect
because it relies on data provided by the church’s dioceses and religious
orders. <SPAN
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<P>Anne Barrett Doyle, the co-director of <A
href="http://bishopaccountability.org/" target=_>BishopAccountability.org</A>, a
Web site that compiles reports on abuse cases, said, “There aren’t many dioceses
where prosecutors have gotten involved, but in every single instance there’s a
vast gap — a multiplier of two, three or four times — between the numbers of
perpetrators that the prosecutors find and what the bishops released.” </P>
<P>David Clohessy, national director of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of
those Abused by Priests, said that while the report contained no surprises, it
had nonetheless been a disappointment because it did not include recommendations
for far-reaching reforms, including limiting the power of bishops. Mr. Clohessy
said this was critical because bishops had covered up many instances of sexual
abuse by priests in the past. </P>
<P>“Predictably and conveniently, the bishops have funded a report that says
what they’ve said all along, and what they wanted to hear back,” he said.
“Fundamentally, they’ve found that they needn’t even consider any substantive
changes.” </P>
<P>Robert M. Hoatson, a priest and a founder of Road to Recovery, which offers
counseling and referrals to victims, said the idea that the sexual and social
upheavals of past decades were to blame for the abuse of children was an attempt
to shift responsibility from church leaders. Mr. Hoatson said he had been among
those who had been abused.“It deflects responsibility from the bishops and puts
it on to a sociological problem,” he said. “This is a people problem. It wasn’t
because of the ’70s, and it wasn’t the ’60s, and it wasn’t because of the 1450s.
This was something individuals did.” </P>
<P>Kristine Ward, the chairwoman of the National Survivor Advocates Coalition,
said the cultural explanation did not appear to explain why abuse cases within
the Catholic church have shaken places from Australia and Ireland to South
America. “Does the culture of the U.S. in the 1960s explain that? It’s hard to
believe,” she said. </P>
<P>The most recent example is in Philadelphia, where a grand jury in February
found that as many as 37 priests suspected of behavior ranging from sexual abuse
to inappropriate actions were still serving in ministry. The archdiocese
initially rejected the grand jury’s findings, but soon suspended 26 priests from
ministry. </P>
<P>An essay in the Catholic magazine <A
href="http://commonwealmagazine.org/fog-scandal-1">Commonweal</A> last week by
Ana Maria Catanzaro, who heads the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s sexual-abuse
review board, which is supposed to advise the archdiocese on how to handle abuse
cases, said that the board was shocked to learn about the dozens of cases
uncovered by the grand jury. Her essay raised questions about whether bishops
provide accurate data even to their own, in-house review boards. </P>
<P>Still, the John Jay report says that when it comes to analyzing the incidence
and causes of sexual abuse, “No organization has undertaken a study of itself in
the manner of the Catholic Church.” </P>
<P>Because there are no comparable studies conducted by other institutions,
religious or secular, the report says, “It is impossible to accurately compare
the rate of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church to rates of abuse in other
organizations.” </P><NYT_CORRECTION_BOTTOM>
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class=articleCorrection></DIV></NYT_CORRECTION_BOTTOM><NYT_UPDATE_BOTTOM></NYT_UPDATE_BOTTOM></DIV></NYT_TEXT></FONT></DIV><FONT
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