Homosexuality
did not cause Catholic Church child abuse scandal, report says
for PinkNews.co.uk
19 may 2011
A study commissioned by
the US Catholic Church confirms that child abuse by priests was not caused by
homosexuality or celibacy.
The $2 million report, by
the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, instead says that the
sexual revolution post-1960 was to blame, along with poor training and a lack
of emotional support.
Study authors wrote: “The rise in abuse cases in the 1960s and 1970s was
influenced by social factors in society generally. 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 suggestion that only
gay priests abuse boys within the church is often repeated. However, the study
found no evidence for this and authors wrote that clinical data “[does] not
support the hypothesis that priests with a homosexual identity … are
significantly more likely to sexually abuse”.
Conversely, the study
claimed that rates of child abuse began to drop after a significant rise in
young gay men entering the priesthood in the 1970s.
Responses to the report
were mixed. Some child abuse survivors accused the church of trying to shrug
off blame, while one conservative church figure claimed gay priests were the
perpetrators.
Bill Donohue of the
Catholic League said: “The report says that 81 per cent of the victims were
male and 78 per cent were post-pubescent. Since 100 per cent of the abusers
were male, that’s called homosexuality, not pedophilia or heterosexuality.”
Abuse victims’ groups also
reacted angrily to the report and accused the church of trying to shift the
blame on to societal factors, rather than taking responsibility for allowing
paedophile priests to continue working.
Joelle Casteix of The
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said: “They want us to fixate on
abusive priests, not callous bishops.”
She added: “The report
claims abuse ‘peaked in the 1970s’, then began declining. This is perhaps the
most absurd and damaging assumption. All but a few victims are only able to
report child sex crimes decades later.
“Because of this
inevitable lag time, it’s irresponsible to pretend anyone has any real sense of
how many clergy sex crimes happened in recent years or are happening now.”