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The Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Roman Catholic Church: What Psychologists and Counselors Should Know Thomas G

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The Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Roman Catholic Church: What Psychologists and Counselors Should Know Thomas G View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Scholar Commons - Santa Clara University Santa Clara University Scholar Commons Psychology College of Arts & Sciences 5-2004 The sexual abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church: What psychologists and counselors should know Thomas G. Plante Santa Clara University, [email protected] Courtney Daniels Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.scu.edu/psych Part of the Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Plante, T. G., & Daniels, C. (2004). The exs ual abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church: What psychologists and counselors should know. Pastoral Psychology, 52, 381-393. The final publication is available at Springer via http://doi.org/10.1023/B:PASP.0000020686.94708.02 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts & Sciences at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Psychology by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Roman Catholic Church: What Psychologists and Counselors Should Know Thomas G. Plante 1, 2, 3 and Courtney Daniels 1 _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Recent events regarding child sexual abuse committed by Roman Catholic priests in the Archdiocese of Boston and elsewhere have yet again resulted in a tremendous amount of media attention and frenzy regarding this topic. During 2002 alone, approximately 300 American Catholic priests, including several bishops, were accused of child sexual abuse. Many were forced to resign their positions while others were prosecuted and went to prison. Curiously, there still exist many myths and misperceptions about priests who sexually abuse children and their victims. Since psychologists and other mental health professionals are likely to interact with many who have been impacted by these recent events, it is important for them to have some basic understanding of the various myths and misperceptions about sexual abuse committed by Roman Catholic priests. KEY WORDS: clergy abuse; Catholic Church; psychology. 1 Department of Psychology, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California. 2 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, California. 3 Address correspondence to Thomas Plante, Department of Psychology, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, California 95053-0333; telephone: (408) 554- 4471; fax: (408) 554-5241; e-mail: [email protected]. The recent sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, highly publicized since January 6, 2002 beginning with an investigative report published by the Boston Globe (Boston Globe Investigative Staff, 2002), has resulted in an almost hysterical national and international response to the allegations, convictions, resignations, and cover ups of priest sex offenders. All of the major newspapers, magazines, and television news programs throughout the United States and much of the world reported on the many cases of Catholic priests who engaged minors in sexual activity during the past several decades. The crisis resulted in daily headline news for much of 2002. Many people called for the resignation or defrocking of not only the priests accused of sexual misconduct but also the various bishops, cardinals, and other religious superiors who were responsible for supervising these men and assigning them to their priestly duties. The most notable example was the call for Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston to resign. Remarkably, 58 Boston area priests (Paulson, 2002a) as well as the 25,000-member Boston-based Catholic reform organization, Voice of the Faithful, demanded that Cardinal Law resign (Mehren, 2002). Finally, on December 13, 2002, Pope John Paul II accepted Cardinal Law’s resignation. Catholics and non-Catholics alike have been furious with Church leaders for not better protecting unsuspecting children and families from sex offending priests. Calls for reform have also been voiced about other challenging and controversial issues with the Roman Catholic Church such as the prohibitions against women, married, and homosexual priests. It is unlikely that the American Catholic Church has experienced a more difficult crisis in our lifetime (Boston Globe Investigative Staff, 2002; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2002a). What the does the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church have to do with psychology and related fields? First of all, approximately 25% of the American population identify themselves as being Roman Catholic (Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, 2000). Additionally, countless people (Catholics and many non-Catholics alike) have received elementary, secondary, and/or university education through Catholic schools and universities (McDonald, 2002). Furthermore, each year over 7 million Americans receive social and medical services from Catholic Charities while Catholic hospitals are the largest non-profit healthcare provider in the United States with over 800 facilities treating over 70 million patients each year (Catholic Charities USA, 2000; Flynn, 2000). Therefore, an enormous subset of the American population have had or continue to have direct contact with priests, other Catholic clergy such as religious sisters and brothers, and the Catholic Church in general at least in some capacity. Thus, because of the large number of people affiliated with the Catholic Church and their social and medical services, most psychologists and other counselors either personally or professionally interact with colleagues, students, clients, patients, or others who are touched by the Catholic Church. Second, the crisis in the Catholic Church is a crisis of behavior. This includes the behavior of priests and other male Catholic clergy (e.g., brothers, deacons) who have sexually engaged with minors and Church leaders for inadequate supervision and decisions regarding how to best manage Catholic clergy who behave in problematic ways. Psychologists and other mental health professionals, by the very nature of their education, training, experience, and work are experts on human behavior. Thus, they can offer and have offered a great deal to help with this problem (Daw, 2002). Finally, many of the experts on these issues are in fact psychologists and other mental health professionals (see Daw, 2002; Plante, 1999a; Rossetti, 1995, 1996). Therefore, psychologists and counselors have the interest and skill to help consult and manage these issues working closely with Church officials, offending clergy, the media, child protective services, law enforcement, abuse victims and victim groups, and the Catholic laity. COMMON MYTHS It is remarkable that given the extensive media attention sexual abuse committed by priests has garnered, so many myths and misconceptions continue to persist about this topic. Let’s examine the most common myths and misperceptions and comment on each one. Myth 1: Catholic priests are highly likely to be pedophiles Research from a variety of sources and authors throughout North America suggest that less than 6% of Roman Catholic priests have had a sexual experience with a minor (e.g., anyone under the age of 18). On the high estimate side, Sipe (1990, 1995) reports that 2 percent of priests are pedophiles (e.g., sexual interest in prepubescent children) while an additional 4 percent are ephebophiles (i.e., sexual interest in adolescents). Thus, Sipe reports that 6% of Catholic clergy have had some sexual experience with minors. Since there are approximately 60,000 active and retired Catholic priests and brothers in the United States, Sipe’s figures suggest that approximately 4,000 Catholic clergy have had sexual involvement with minors. Others strongly disagree with Sipe’s findings. Loftus and Camargo (1993) studied 1,322 priests over a twenty-five-year time frame who were hospitalized in a private Canadian psychiatric facility specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of clergy. These authors, based on analyses of more than 100 youth molesters and contrast groups of celibate, homosexual, and heterosexually active subjects, reported that 2.7 percent of the treatment population were pedophiles, while 61.1 percent experienced no sexual acting out behavior. Jenkins (2001) reports that of the 150,000 active and retired Catholic priests in the United States since 1960, only approximately 800 (less than 1%) have experienced credible accusations of sexual abuse of minors. Since the recent media attention on this topic erupted during 2002, only approximately 300 additional Catholic priests and brothers have had credible accusations brought against them (Robinson, 2002). Rossetti (2002a) reports that about 1% of Catholic priests have had a sexual experience with a child and an additional 1% has had a sexual experience with an adolescent totaling 2% of all Catholic clergy. Plante (1999a) brought together leading clinicians and researchers from across North America to participate in an edited book on this topic and a professional conference that all agreed that, based on their collective research findings and both clinical and consultative experiences, no more than 6% of priests appear to have had sexual experiences with minors. Tragically, we know that sexual abuse of minors is not limited to Roman Catholic priests (Francis & Turner, 1995; Ruzicka, 1997; Young & Griffith, 1995). Although
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