Healing Through Knowledge.

No phenomenon has wreaked havoc on the lives of individual Catholics and on the credibility of the Catholic Church as a whole the way that the sexual abuse crisis has. In the United States alone, more than 4,000 priests have been accused of the sexual abuse of minors, and more than 10,000 people have reported that they were abused as minors at the hands of their priests. More recently, the church and our society have begun to grapple with reports of vulnerable adults, including the church’s own seminarians, being sexually harassed by clergy—reports that are ongoing, according to a 2019 study.

Since its 2002 Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, the Catholic Church in the United States has seen a significant reduction in the numbers of abuse cases being reported—though that has not meant an end to the problem, and actual numbers of current abuse cases are not yet known. Furthermore, sexual abuse and harassment by Catholic clergy have proven to be a global phenomenon, and in some parts of the world these numbers are actually on the rise.

Despite improvements in the United States, the sexual abuse of minors and the sexual harassment of vulnerable adults by U.S. Catholic clergy is not just a stain on our past. In a 2018 letter to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Chairman of the bishops' own National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People warns that this crisis is not yet over.

It is also not yet fully understood. The root causes that led to a dramatic increase in abuse during the 1960s through 1980s remain still largely unexplored, leaving us vulnerable to repeating that tragic history in the future. Moreover, questions about the long-term effects of this crisis on the Church itself, and about what is needed to bring about healing, reconciliation, and restoration of trust, are questions just beginning to be asked.

We at the Dulles Research Institute believe that the surest way to put an end to this crisis is to understand it. And the best way to understand it is to examine it in the full light of day, using all the tools that scholarly research makes available to us. We also believe that, when dealing with so destructive a phenomenon, the search for truth cannot risk being subverted by self-interest, ideological bias, the desire to curry favor, or fear.

For this reason, we are confident that the best way to provide valuable insights for the good of the church and society is for the Dulles Research Institute to draw on the skills and insights of researchers from multiple disciplines and backgrounds, all carrying out their work in complete independence from the Catholic hierarchy and from all other institutions.

We also believe that the more there is open dialogue and freedom of inquiry regarding this problem, the better the chances of arriving at real solutions. In order to foster the continual growth of that kind of free and open scholarly dialogue, in addition to its own original scholarship, the Dulles Research Institute is proud to be able to offer research grants and a forum for publication to encourage other scholars to pursue ongoing independent research.

We are convinced that happy, healthy, holy priests are ultimately the surest guarantee of a safe environment in the Catholic Church. Whatever contributes to that happiness, health, and holiness, then, is within the scope of our research.

No topics are off limits, no conclusions are out of bounds, as long as methodologies are sound and evidence-based, and as long as the goal is an honest and unbiased search for truth, arbitrated by peer review and scholarly debate. The Dulles Research Institute embraces no particular ecclesial or political agenda and advances no particular doctrine or ideology.