Correlation between Catholic Priests and sexual abuse of young boys?

Question

*This is not meant as an attack to the church!*

Out of my own personal curiosity: What is the correlation between the two? Why is this so prevalent? Has there been an increase in sexual abuse? Decrease? Does anyone know the psychological cause behind this? Is it related to celibacy? Any personal insight is welcome, but please do not use this as a venue to attack the church or show any disrespect to the victims.

in response to jinenglish: perhaps the percentage will be similar, but shouldn't the percentage for priests be significantly less as they are in a position of power and are supposed to be role models for their followers? this is really what i am trying to find out. and the "why" behind it

Answer 1

The only real correlation is that the priesthood used to be a place where people that had socially unacceptable impulses would seek reufge in an attempt to stifle those urges. An attempt that proved, more often than not, to be unsuccessful. As far as increases or decreases, as the records of such abuses do not go very far back, there isn't really any way to know for certain.

As for the psychological causes, that is still up for debate. No one rally knows what causes normal sexual attraction, let alone abnormal. The most recent theory, and it is JUST a theory at ths point, is that these people associate sexuality with a particular influence. It may be that they were sexually attracted to someone at that age and are targeting those that remind them of that original person, or there may be some other reason thathey associate sexuality with someon of a particular gender or age, which is why most victims of abusers that have multiple victims all share some similar trait(s).

As for celibacy that has nothing to do with it. If it did then priests would target more than just young boys, the would target girls, or women, or what or who ever else aroused them. I suppose it could be argued that it comes down to accsessability, but that doesn't really fly because many people that are celibate either by choice or by chance have access and do not simply act out of convenience. The truth of the matter is that no one really knows why, and unfortunately the why isn't being as thoroughly looked into as it should be. Until the why is understood, it will continue to be a problem because until the cause is known, a way to prevent it cannot be found.

Answer 2

I don't think celibacy plays that much of a role. I've known priests that had sexual relations with women, with other grown men. And I'm sure many of them just masturbate a lot. The celibacy thing came about in the 13th century. They no longer wanted a woman's influence on the priest,or any of the clergy. It saved them an enormous amount of money, not supporting whole family's, and at the time, being homosexual was prevalent. Almost all of the canonized saints during that period where self professed homosexuals. Over time it became a haven for pedophiles, which brings us up to today. Over the past few decades, the Catholic Church has paid out around 1.5 billion dollars to people that where abused by priests. Personally, I don't think they should be allowed to claim bankruptcy. It's not like they pay taxes. They just rob all the money from the diocese that the people have given them.

Answer 3

It isn't prevalent. The incidence of such crimes among priests is just about the same as among any other group of men. Coverage of it by the secular press is what is prevalent. When a scout leader or guidance counselor or teacher (the largest single group of molestors) molests a child, it is covered locally. When an uncle or grandparent does it, it may not be covered by the press at all. But when a priest commits the same crime it is on the front page of every secular newspaper in the country. Obviously it has nothing to do with celibacy since (1) most child molestors are married men; (2) 99% of priests have no such problem even though they are celibate; and (3) the 1% of priests who have had such problems didn't molest small children, but adolescent boys. Therefore they are not true pedophiles, but homosexuals, and therefore would not marry even if allowed to.
.

Answer 4

I think that being gay is something that you are born with but hundreds of years ago was more than just condemned and that gay men could go into priesthood and not only be praised for celibacy but also do the sick things that are finally being discovered today. I don't think it's an increase but a final uncovering of the truth, no one ever would have messed with a priests business back in the day. Besides why would it be all of a sudden and why does the church hide it so, celibacy is just a cop out, when it's just gay men that take being gay to a place where it turns into something sick and twisted.

Answer 5

I do not believe celibacy has anything to do with it at all. I believe it is all about the type of person who would be drawn to the priesthood. Some are honest men, other are not. The Catholic church does not seem to be able to screen these people out up front like the more conservative churches. The catholic church actually adds to the problem by covering for the priest once they are found out. From the actions of the church hierarchy one would conclude that they are all pedophiles-but I know this is not true. But why the catholic Church harbors and protects these criminals instead of prosecuting them is a mystery.

Answer 6

There is a retreat in New Mexico for priest pedophiles. And during an interview the director said that there were 50,000 priests in the US and they have had 20,000 come through their center - but he also said that he did not think that there were more than 10% of the priesthood that were pedophiles. It must be that catholic education- I went through it and consider it the worst that I have ever had - but 20,000 out of 50,000 is not 10%. Also, some insiders in the church think that it is about 50%.

Why??? It is one of two reasons. Either the church attracts those type of people - with the thought of having all those little boys around, or the people who due become priests go through a metamorphosis and decide that they like little boys.

Answer 7

Hold on STOP! The idea of prevalence is an extreme idea. For example in America alone there are over 50,000 clergy yet those accused of any wrong doing are ~1% of the total. Also many of these accusations are against priests from over 40 years ago some of them cannot even defend themselves as they are already deceased. Now I'm not saying there are no guilty priests but in our system of law in the majority of western society one is inocent until proven otherwise, the secular media is not a reliable source of information today its all about hyping the story for wider viewer audience.

The Catholic church never claims priests are sinless beings the first thing those outside Catholicism need to understand. Therefore the failure of individuals doesn't make the Church community an incorrect teacher simply because these sins are not as okay behavior.

Now if you want statistical information please read this from a neutral government report posted on the catholic league website
dated Feb 2004. http://www.catholicleague.org/research/abuse_in_social_context.htm

Secondly if one wants a broader view of things one which you can't discern from the secular media please see this website for what is going on in non-catholic clergy http://www.reformation.com
After a closer look at the facts I've come to understand the rate of these crimes are greater in non-catholic clergy and greater still in general society. The big shocker was to discover that out of all abuse cases of children women were the greater offenders.

Answer 8

I think the Catholic priesthood is an example of a system that has been designed to fail.

I don't think that celibacy causes the kinds of behavior you're talking about, but I do think that *some* people turn to it to help them surpress their own demons. Unfortunately, their service puts them in contact with vulnerable populations, and they've never dealt with their issues.

I'd be willing to bet that this kind of abuse always happened, but that it wasn't the kind of thing a victim could ever come forward about. It's all pretty sad.

Answer 9

About 4% of priests have been accused of sexual abuse of children. This is about the same percentage as in the general population. I would not call this "prevalent". "Prevalent" wopuld indicate a higher percentage than in the general population. A child is 100 times more likely to be sexually abused in a public school.

I do not think that pedophelia is related to celibacy since the vast majority of people who sexually abuse children are not celibate. Most are the parent of the child being abused.

Abel & Harlow, psychiatrist, scientist and researchers, did an extensive research on the incidence of child molestation in the US. Their findings indicate that 5% of all US teenage boys and male adults have molested or sexually abused a child. 90% of them are family members or friends of family - 30% are the stepdad, 19% biological father, 18% Uncle, 12% older brother, 5% grandfather and 6% friends. The rest are strangers.

http://www.childmolestationprevention.org/pages/tell_others_the_facts.html

A quote from this article:

"Unfortunately, most of today's children will never tell. They feel ashamed that this has happened to them. THEY ARE PROTECTING THEIR ABUSER BECAUSE HE OR SHE IS PART OF THE FAMILY. THEY ARE PROTECTING OTHER MEMBERS OF THEIR FAMILY-SAVING THEM FROM THE PAIN OF KNOWING."

In contrast and as per the LA TIMES article there has been about 600 priest declared guilty of child molestation and about another 1,000 accused for a total of about 1,600 priests found guilty plus accused for the period 1950 to present. During this time, there were about 150,000 priest and religious. Based on this data, the incidence of child molestation among priests is a little over 1%. Contrast this with the 5% child molesters by the US adult males and teenage boys. So incidence is 5 tiems greater and the worst part is that 84% of these 5% are family members and the families prefer to hide it rather than cause a family scandal.

Answer 10

define "so prevalent".

tell me how many Roman Catholic priests there have been, then tell me how many of them have been accused of this sort of abuse. What is the relative percentage? Quite low, I'd wager.

Now, go into the general population and do the same analysis. Are the two percentages statistically similar? Quite likely.