NOTES

(1) Drs. Karen J. Terry, Katarina Schuth, & Margaret Leland Smith, “Incidence of Clerical Sexual Abuse Over Time: Changes in Behavior and Seminary Training Between 1950 and 2008,” in Thomas G. Plante and Kathleen McChesney (eds.), Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: A Decade of Crisis, 2002-2012 (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011), 29-30.

(2) The John Jay College of Criminal Justices, The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010 (Washington, DC: USCCB, 2011), 16. Available at” http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/upload/The-Causes-and-Context-of-Sexual-Abuse-of-Minors-by-Catholic-Priests-in-the-United-States-1950-2010.pdf.

(3) John Jay College, Causes and Context. This study, in turn, relied upon the findings of an earlier study on the nature and scope of the problem: The John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The Nature and Scope of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States, 2950-2002 (Washington, DC: USCCB, 2004). Available at: http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/upload/the-nature-and-scope-of-sexual-abuse-of-minors-by-catholic-priests-and-deacons-in-the-united-states-1950-2002.pdf.

(4) David Finkelhor, Child Sexual Abuse: New Theory and Research (New York: The Free Press, 1984). While critiques of the limitations of Finkelhor’s multifactorial model may certainly be made, it remains widely used in discussing the phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors, and it provides a worthwhile framework for illustrating the advances and the unfinished agenda in the Catholic Church’s current response to the crisis.

(5) John Jay College, Nature and Scope, 44ff.

(6) John Jay College, Causes and Context, 74.

(7) John Jay College, Nature and Scope, 44ff.

(8) See Karen J. Terry, “The Report on U.S. Catholic Pirests’ Sex Abuse: What the Critics God Wrong,” in The Crime Report, June 23, 2011, available at: https://thecrimereport.org/2011/06/23/2011-06-the-report-on-us-catholic-priests-sex-abuse-what-the/

(9) Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea, “The John Jay Study: What It Is and What It Isn’t,” National Catholic Reporter, July 19, 2011, available at: https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/john-jay-study-what-it-and-what-it-isnt.

4. In 2002, the U.S. Catholic Bishops adopted the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People and its Essential Norms for dealing with abuse cases, including its new ‘zero-tolerance’ policy. Hasn’t this taken care of the problem?

The Catholic Church in the United States has made important strides in tackling the sexual abuse and harassment problem, but much more remains to be done. And unless that remaining work is done, the risk of a renewed crisis looms overhead. In the words of three of the contributors to the John Jay studies commissioned by the U.S. bishops,

“It is critical that we understand the causes of this crisis, so as to prevent another in the future.” (1)

Barriers vs. solutions

Confronted with the astounding scale of the abuse crisis in their church, Catholic bishops acted in 2002 to do triage on the Body of Christ. The first priority was to put in place measures designed as barriers to further abuse: removal from ministry of any priest with even a single accusation of abuse deemed ‘credible’ by church authorities; widespread training for clergy and laity on abuse prevention; protocols for contact with minors; a renewed emphasis on screening candidates for seminary (though without uniform standards for screening, beyond criminal background checks); and an agreement that ‘human formation’ should get renewed attention in seminaries (again, without uniform agreement on what that might mean in terms of curriculum and assessment). With these efforts, the bishops put in place barriers intended to minimize the chance of future abuse—with plenty of indications that the barriers have had a positive effect.

And there is good reason to have begun by focusing on these barriers. The John Jay Causes and Context study calls the abuse of minors by Catholic clergy primarily a “crime of opportunity” (2) By reducing the opportunity, therefore, the bishops have sought to reduce the crime. That makes sense—and it’s a good first step. But this is not the full answer to the problem. Relying on situational prevention models alone is a bit like making sure the lid is locked tightly on the pressure cooker without then reducing the pressure inside.

Far less official attention has been given to long-term solutions to the crisis—which requires an in-depth understanding of what went wrong in the first place. Beyond commissioning the John Jay study on the Causes and Context of the abuse crisis (3), little has been done at an institutional level to analyze the root causes of the sexual abuse and harassment of young people and vulnerable adults by Catholic priests. That is precisely the work that the Dulles Research Institute was founded to undertake.

A Familiar Model

Perhaps a good way to distinguish what’s been done from what still remains to be done is to think in terms of Finkelhor’s widely used ‘Four Preconditions’ model (4). According to this model, the sexual abuse of a minor is possible when four conditions are in place:

There has to be a person with the motivation to sexually abuse.
That person has to be able to overcome internal inhibitions that would otherwise prevent him from abusing a minor.
He must be able to overcome external factors that may prevent the abuse.
And he has to be able to overcome the child’s external resistance to the abuse.

Using this model, #1 and #2 are INTERNAL FACTORS within the potentially abusive priest himself, while #3 and #4 are EXTERNAL FACTORS.

Since 2002, the U.S. bishops’ response to the abuse and harassment crisis has focused almost exclusively on the EXTERNAL FACTORS. Much less has been done with regard to the INTERNAL FACTORS within the priest himself.

Criminal background checks screen out abusers with a record of prior abuse—but most priests who abused minors did not have a record of abuse when they entered the seminary. (5)
Psychological screening helps to weed out those with diagnosable psychological disorders—but most priests who abused minors did not suffer from any more such disorders than their non-abusive counterparts. (6)

And so, the church relies principally on reducing access to minors and increasing awareness of the signs of potential abuse. It is an almost exclusively situational prevention model focused on the external factors. As such,

It is a model that contributes little to the goal of forming a happier, healthier, holier, and more effective clergy.

The Real Goal: Happier, Healthier, Holier, and More Effective Priests

Most priests who abused minors between 1950 and 2010 did not engage in abusive behavior early in their priestly ministry. (7) And we know that issues like high levels of stress, abuse of alcohol and drugs, and the lack of intimate (even if non-sexual) relationships all have the potential to reduce a priest’s own internal controls against acting out sexually. (8) But, as psychologist Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea has pointed out, “There is little ongoing assessment and formation for Catholic priests, especially after their first five years. Since most accused priests did not abuse for the first time until six to nine years after ordination, it suggests that the assessment and formation (re-formation?) of priests cannot stop, but must be something woven into the fabric of their lives over the entire course of their careers.” (9)

In other words,

if they are to be effective in the long term, abuse prevention efforts cannot be focused exclusively on external factors and the early years of seminary formation. The church also needs efforts focused on the internal factors, and continuing throughout the priest’s life.

To date, little is known about the internal motivations that led priests to engage in abuse behaviors, as few studies of priest abusers have been done. That is why, for its first study, the Dulles Research Institute has undertaken in-depth life-history interviews with 50 priests who have been removed from ministry over accusations of sexual malfeasance. Our researchers are talking to the men themselves in order to find the common themes motivating and enabling their abuse. When that is done, the DRI will undertake a similar qualitative study with seminarians and young priests (i.e., those admitted to the seminary and ordained since new screening and formation protocols have been put in place), to see which of the themes identified in the earlier study are found among the newest generation of Catholic clergy. In this way, the DRI will seek to assess how much has really changed and what issues still need to be addressed.