NOTES
(1) See National Center for Victims of Crime, “Child Sexual Abuse Statistics,” available at https://victimsofcrime.org/media/reporting-on-child-sexual-abuse/child-sexual-abuse-statistics. See also, A.J. Sedlak et al., Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS-4): Report to Congress (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010), 8.
(2) The John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The Nature and Scope of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States, 1950-2002 (Washington, DC: USCCB, 2004), 69, 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.
(3) As just one example among many, see Bill Donahue, “Straight Talk About the Catholic Church,” The New York Times, April 11, 2011. The full text is available in Michael J. O’Loughlin, “In All Things: Bill Donohue’s Ad in NYT,” America, April 11, 2011, available at: https://www.americamagazine.org/content/all-things/bill-donohues-ad-nyt.
(4) Shannon Levitt Ines San Martin, “Sex Abuse Prevention Expert Says “No Simple Answers to Complex Problems,” Crux, November 13, 2019, available at: https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americas/2019/11/sex-abuse-prevention-expert-says-no-simple-answers-to-complex-problems/.
(5) Dr. Marie Keenan, Child Sexual Abuse & the Catholic Church: Gender, Power, and Organizational Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 14.
(6) Msgr. Stephen J. Rossetti, “Learning From Our Mistakes: Responding Effectively to Child Sexual Abusers,” USCCB website, available at: http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/resources/upload/Rossetti-Learning-from-our-mistakes.pdf.
(7) The John Jay College, The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010 (Washington, DC: USCCB, 2011), 74
It must be noted that the John Jay findings are somewhat different than the findings of McGlone, Viglione, & Geary. Their 2002 study, based on cases at one treatment center, found a majority of the priest abusers of prepubescent children to be self-identified heterosexuals, but a larger percentage (46%) of the abusers of postpubescent teens to be self-identified homosexuals (compared to 35% heterosexuals and 19% bisexuals). See G. McGlone, D.J. Viglione, & B. Geary, Data From One Treatment Center in the USA (n=150 Catholic Clergy) Who Have Sexually Offended, presented at the Annual Research and Treatment Conference of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (Montreal, Canada, October 2002). The 2007 work of Ukeritis and Dodgson similarly found higher numbers of self-identified homosexuals had abused adolescents aged 14 to 17. See M. Ukeritis and C. Dodgson, “Clergy Who Violate Boundaries,” Seminary Journal 13, no. 3 (Winter 2007). In all cases, the numbers of heterosexual abusers of postpubescent teens was significant and cannot be overlooked as though this were a purely homosexual problem. Nonetheless, it remains to be determined why there is a discrepancy in these findings regarding the numbers of self-identified homosexual abusers. The broader national sample of the John Jay study may explain the difference. It is also possible that the difference has to do with self-identification of sexual orientation at specific moments of the perpetrators’ lives (e.g., in seminary, in priesthood but prior to offending, post-offending). This question demands longitudinal study, which the DRI seeks to undertake.
(8) Ibid., 63.
(9) Ibid., 64.
(10) Ibid., 63. No analysis is given for why this is the case. One may wonder if it is connected to the observation that a background of rigidity presents a risk for abuse. (See Sr. Katarina Schuth, ”USCCB Webinar on Resources for Prevention of Sexual Abuse,” USCCB website, October 6, 2014, available at: http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/reports-and-research.cfm ). This is speculation, however, and demands serious research, such as the DRI proposes to undertake.
(11) Ibid., 65.
(12) Robert Mickens, “The Catholic Church is Enabling the Sex Abuse Crisis by Forcing Gay Priests to Stay in the Closet,” The Washington Post, July 23, 2018, available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/07/23/the-catholic-churchs-sex-abuse-scandals-show-it-has-a-gay-priest-problem-theyre-trapped-in-the-closet/.
(13) Bill Donohue, “Homosexual Role in Abuse Scandal Acknowledged,” CNSnews.com, July 23, 2018, available at: https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/bill-donohue/homosexual-role-abuse-scandal-acknowledged.
(14) Bill Donohue, “John Jay 2011 Study on Sexual Abuse: A Critical Analysis,” available at: https://www.catholicleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/John-Jay-Report-1-27-12-Update.pdf.
(15) Ibid., 11. Donohue writes, “Yes, it is entirely possible for a homosexual not to recognize that he is a homosexual. So what? Isn't it behavior, not selfperception, that objectively defines one's sexual orientation?”
(16) Keenan, Child Sexual Abuse & the Catholic Church, 12-13. Here, Keenan draws on the work of S.J. Rossetti and L.M. Lothsetin, “Myths of the Child Molester,” in S.J. Rossetti (ed.), Slayer of the Soul: Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church, (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third, 1990), 9-18.
Richard Sipe confirms this attitude in seminaries of an earlier period when he writes, “limited homosexual experience in a candidate’s background could be better tolerated than an experience of heterosexual intercourse; the logic was that if one had experienced coitus, one was not likely to complete the course of studies. As one seminary professor put it: ‘Once they get a taste of that, it is very tough to keep the discipline’—meaning, of course, celibacy. The shame and guilt of an isolated homosexual encounter, plus the structure of the seminary schedule, were presumed to be positively motivational rather than a deterrent to celibacy.” See his A Secret World: Sexuality and the Search for Celibacy (New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1990), 105.
(17) John Jay College, Causes and Context, 55.
(18) J.A. Tallon & K.J. Terry, “Analyzing Paraphilic Activity, Specialization and Generalization in Priests Who Sexually Abused Minors,” Criminal Justice and Behavior 35, no. 5 (May 2008): 620.
This statistic may be somewhat misleading. It’s important to note that Tallon and Terry are referencing the priests with multiple victims, looking to see if their multiple victims share age and gender characteristics with one another (which would indicate that the abuser had a specific target), or whether they are of diverse ages and genders (which would indicate that the abuser was a ‘generalist’). This is a perfectly valid approach, and it yields an important insight. However, it must be noted that the majority of priest abusers (55%), who had only one victim each, cannot be said to be non-specific in their choice of victim; all that can be said is that, since there is no set of victims to compare, we cannot know whether they are generalists or not.
(19) See Keenan, Child Sexual Abuse & the Catholic Church, 13. Here, Keenan draws on Tallon & Terry, “Analyzing Paraphilic Activity,” 615.
It is worth noting that Freud recognized a category of homosexuality that was situational or occasional, where “the inaccessibility of the normal sexual object” might lead one to take sexual gratification in someone of the same sex under certain circumstances. See Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905), available online in English Translation at: https://www.sigmundfreud.net/three-essays-on-the-theory-of-sexuality-pdf-ebook.jsp.
(20) See John Jay College, Causes and Context, 62-64. The researchers write, “For example, it is possible for a man to identify as ‘heterosexual’ because he is sexually attracted to adult women; however, he may commit an act of sexual abuse against a male youth. Reasons for abusing a male minor are numerous and might include issues such as having opportunities to abuse the youth.” See p. 136, n. 254.
(21) Consider here Kinsey’s now-famous seven-point scale, ranging from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual, with varying levels of attraction and/or sexual activity with either sex, and with an understanding that such attraction was not consistent through time. The Klein Sexual Orientation Grid and the Storms Scale are two of the more famous of dozens of scales that build on Kinsey’s insight regarding the continuum of sexual attraction, adding further nuance. For further information on Kinsey’s insights, visit https://kinseyinstitute.org/research/publications/kinsey-scale.php.
Consider, also, the nuances in types of homosexuality that are represented in Sipe’s treatment of multiple ‘homosexualities.’ In treating homosexual orientation and activity among seminarians and priests, Sipe delineates pseudohomosexuality, defensive homosexuality, regressive homosexuality, situational homosexuality, obligatory homosexuality, committed homosexuality, and latent homosexuality. See Sipe, A Secret World, 118-131.
In light of the nuance of these (and other) studies, attempts to identify sexual abuse of minors with one general category of ‘homosexuality,’ and attempts to classify all seminarians and priests simply as homosexual or not, seem doomed by their oversimplification.
(22) Sipe, A Secret World, 133.
(23) Ibid., 162. Sipe’s work is based upon interviews with and reports from approximately 1,500 people, including roughly 500 priests in whose clinical cases he was directly involved.
(24) John Jay College, Causes and Context, 64-65, 74.
(25) Rossetti, “Learning From Our Mistakes,” 9.
(26) Ibid. Rossetti cites McGlone, Viglione, and Geary from their 2002 presentation to the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, based on a sample of 158 priests at Saint Luke Institute who had abused minors. In the cohort of those who molested pre-pubescent children, a significant majority of the abusers identified themselves as heterosexual (54%, compared to 32% self-identified homosexuals and 14% bisexuals). When it came to the abuse of adolescents, however, 46% identified as homosexual, 35% identified as heterosexual, and 19% identified as bisexual. See G. McGlone, D.J. Viglione, & B. Geary, Data From One Treatment Center in the USA (n=150 Catholic Clergy) Who Have Sexually Offended, presented at the Annual Research and Treatment Conference of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (Montreal, Canada, October 2002). When only older adolescents (between the ages of 14 and 17) were considered, Urkitis and Dodgson found the percentage of self-identified homosexual abusers to be even higher. See M. Urkitis and C. Dodgson, “Clergy Who Violate Boundaries,” Seminary Journal 13, no. 3 (Winter 2007): 16.
It is worth noting that Sipe’s analysis is somewhat different (as noted above); he sees the abuse of adolescents split about evenly between homosexuals and heterosexuals. This may be accounted for by the fact that the studies being cited by Rossetti and by Urkitis, along with the John Jay studies, are based on reported cases of abuse, while Sipe is making use of clinical work with abusers whose cases were not always reported. As noted above, Sipe states that, “the homosexual contacts are four times more likely to come to the attention of parents or authorities, especially if the sexual involvement stops short of intercourse in heterosexual cases.” See his A Secret World, 162.
(27) Donohue, “John Jay 2011 Study on Sexual Abuse,” 9.
(28) Martin P. Kafka maintains that, while homosexuality is not a cause, it is a risk factor for the sexual abuse of young males. See his “Sexual Molesters of Adolescents, Ephebophilia and Catholic Clergy: A Review and Synthesis,” in Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: Scientific and Legal Perspectives, ed. by R. Karl Hanson et al. (Vatican City: LIbreria Editrice Vaticana, 2004), 54. Cited in Rossetti, “Learning From Our Mistakes,” 9.
(29) Rossetti, “Learning From Our Mistakes,” 9.
(30) Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, Address to USCCB General Assembly, Fall 2018, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njVM7ioOaU&feature=youtu.be&t=1349, beginning at 00:22:29.
(31) USCCB website, “John Jay College Reports No Single Cause, Predictor of Clergy Abuse,” May 18, 2011, available at: http://www.usccb.org/news/2011/11-105.cfm.
(32) Juan Carlos Cruz, Notre Dame University 2019 Forum, “Rebuild My Church: Crisis and Response,” September 25, 2019, available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3302cD6bRs.
(33) Rev. D. Paul Sullins, “Is Catholic Clergy Sex Abuse Related to Homosexual Priests?” The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 18, no. 4 (Winter 2018): 25-51.
(34) Sullins claims, “current allegations of abuse have been growing for the past ten to fifteen years amid denial and complacency by Church leaders. There are almost as many allegations of abuse today as in the early 1970s.” See his “Is Catholic Clergy Sex Abuse Related to Homosexual Priests?” 36.
(35) Ibid., 25.
(36) Sullins’ report has been widely critiqued. For a concise summary of some of its main flaws, though, see “Statistics, Clergy Abuse, and Homosexuality: The Sullins Report,” put forward by YArespond, a group of young professionals seeking to respond to the sexual abuse crisis in the Twin Cities. It is available at: https://yarespond.wixsite.com/catholic/blog/statistics-clergy-abuse-and-homosexuality-coefficients. By way of summary, the analysis concludes, “not only are there questions about Sullins’ headline claims as they are presented; there are serious questions about his support of them. In the first place, measures of correlation are vulnerable to the phenomenon of spurious correlation and are sensitive to aggregation. We therefore cannot conclude without more support that the correlations Sullins reports are not spurious, particularly when they are measured on data that has been aggregated into five-year buckets. In the second place, the models Sullins builds in order to support these claims have several issues: These include an unexplained variable, potential multicollinearity, and lower numbers in general than those reported in his headline claims. Unless these issues are addressed, we cannot conclude to have learned anything new from the paper, which is highly susceptible to misleading representations. We should look elsewhere for empirical guidance.”
It is worth noting that this is not the first time the integrity of Sullins’ research has been called into question. A 2015 article in The Atlantic debunks the pseudoscience with which he tries to attack same-sex parenting. See Emma Green, “Using 'Pseudoscience' to Undermine Same-Sex Parents: A New Study Claims that the Children of Gay Couples Are More Likely to Have Emotional and Developmental Problems, But Reveals More About the Researcher Than His Subjects,”The Atlantic, February 19, 2019, available online at: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/using-pseudoscience-to-undermine-same-sex-parents/385604/.
(37) Donohoe, “The John Jay 2011 Report,”9.
(38) The Ruth Institute website, available at: http://www.ruthinstitute.org/about/about-the-ruth-institute.
(39) NCBQ website, “Submission Guidelines,” available at: https://www.ncbcenter.org/files/2914/3094/0137/NCBQ_Information-for-Authors_2013-07-02.pdf.
(40) DRI website, “Our Vision,” available at: https://www.dullesresearchinstitute.org/our-vision.
8. Most of the victims of sexual abuse by priests have been teenage boys. Isn’t this really a gay priest problem? Since the church has now decided to keep men with ‘deep-seated homosexual tendencies’ out of the seminary, won’t that take care of the problem?
A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous thing
It is well documented that one of the factors that distinguishes the sexual offenses of Catholic priests from those in the general population is the overwhelming prevalence of male victims. While across the country, girls are four times more likely to be victims of sexual abuse than boys (1),
in the Catholic Church, boys have been the victims of clergy sexual abuse in 81% of the documented cases (2).
At first glance, this statistic can lead to the simple conclusion that the church’s real problem is homosexual priests (3). And that, in turn, can imply that the solution to the crisis is just as simple: Stop admitting homosexuals into the seminary.
But a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, indeed. When we consider not just this statistic but all the available data, neither the problem nor the solution is quite so simple—highlighting the need for SERIOUS RESEARCH.
Father Hans Zollner is one of the Vatican’s chief experts on the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. Asked in a 2019 conference whether the church should be focusing on homosexuality as the real problem, he became uncharacteristically impatient: “There are things you can repeat over and over again, and people don’t get it,” he said, as he answered the question with a resounding, “No.” He went on to explain that people have a desire for simple solutions, even when there aren’t any. “Let us find an easy solution and a clear strategy,”they say. “Thus you identify either homosexuals or celibates as the core of the problem, and you get rid of them and then the problem is over. This is wishful thinking.” (4)
And there’s reason to be cautious. If we’re not taking into account all the factors involved in this complex problem,
a rush toward simplistic solutions could inadvertently MAKE THE PROBLEM EVEN WORSE.
Without attempting an exhaustive list, consider these facts:
IN GENERAL, FEWER GAY MEN ARE ABUSERS THAN STRAIGHT ONES. Statistically, “men of a heterosexual orientation are the most likely to sexually abuse children,” not homosexual men. (5) It is also well established that “most homosexuals do not molest minors.” (6)
IN THE LARGEST NATIONAL STUDY, ‘OUT’ GAY MEN ARE NOT THE PROBLEM. Clinical data analyzed by the John Jay researchers showed that priests who either identified as homosexual or who engaged in homosexual activity prior to ordination were NOT significantly more likely to abuse minors than heterosexual priests were (7).
CONFUSION OVER SEXUAL IDENTITY IS A SIGNIFICANT RISK. In the John Jay Causes and Context study, priests who identified as either bisexual or confused about their sexual identity were “significantly more likely to have minor victims than priests who identified as either homosexual or heterosexual.” (8) In fact, when it comes to sexual identity, “the only significant risk factor” identified by the study was not a homosexual identity, but a “confused” one. (9)
A NEGATIVE VIEW OF HOMOSEXUALITY IS A RISK. In the same study, priests with negative views of homosexuality were more likely to have minor victims than those who viewed homosexuality in a positive or neutral light. (10)
LACK OF DATING EXPERIENCE IS A RISK. The Causes and Context study also showed that priests who entered the seminary without any romantic dating experience had higher levels of abuse of minors than those who entered the seminary with some dating experience. (11)
Taken together, these facts suggest that psychosexual immaturity and a lack of a clear sexual identity present much greater risks for abuse of minors than a homosexual identity does. After all, as one reporter observed,
“psychologically healthy gay men do not rape boys or force themselves on other men over whom they wield some measure of power or authority.” (12)
Despite his insistence that the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church is really a ‘homosexual problem,’ even the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue has called this reporter’s observation, “undeniable.” (13) Donohue explained his position in a 24-page analysis of the John Jay Causes and Context report: “Let it be said at the outset that it is not my position that homosexuality causes predatory behavior. Indeed, this argument is absurd. As I have said many times, while it is true that most gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters have been gay.” (14)
Identity and behavior
At the surface, it seems obvious that a priest who has sexual contact with an adolescent male must be a homosexual, even if he doesn’t identify himself that way. (15) But the available evidence challenges this blanket assumption.
SOME PRIESTS SEE WOMEN AS A THREAT TO THEIR VOCATION. Dr. Marie Keenan, for example, studied the organizational factors that contributed to sexual offending by priests. Drawing on research by Rossetti and Lothstein, she discusses the phenomenon of priests who, from a young age in seminary, were taught to view women as a threat to their priestly vocation. For these men, “Although sex with a boy was wrong and sinful it was seen as the lesser sin and, in the past at least, the priest did not feel it would threaten his entire vocation and priestly existence.” (16) These men opted for their male victims, not because they were homosexual (indeed, many were not), but because boys did not expose them to what they perceived to be dangers to their priestly vocation, like pregnancy and marriage.
SOME PRIESTS ARE GENERALISTS. The John Jay Causes and Context study identifies 42% of the priest abusers in the United States as ‘generalists’ (17), with only 16% of priest abusers targeting a specific victim type (18). For ‘generalists,’ sexual abuse is more a crime of opportunity than one focused on factors like a victim’s gender. In studying the John Jay data, Tallon & Terry found that fewer than half of the priests with multiple victims abused victims who shared the same gender and/or age (19). These ‘generalist’ abusers of teenage males may be likened to heterosexual men who engage in sex with other men in prison; they do so not because of a principal attraction to males, but because these males are more readily available than their preferred sexual interests.
SOME PSYCHOSEXUALLY IMMATURE PRIESTS WERE EXPERIMENTING. Sexual behavior is not always neatly aligned with sexual identity. (20) Furthermore, as decades of well-accepted research makes clear, sexual identity does not always fall into the neat categories of absolute ‘heterosexual’ and and absolute ‘homosexual,’ with some ‘bisexual’ anomalies placed squarely in between. (21) In some cases, a psychosexually immature seminarian or priest may act out sexually with another male in an instance of sexual experimentation that is part of a developmental phase. Often, such experimentation resolves with the discovery that the priest is, after all, heterosexual. It does, though, raise serious questions about the actual levels of psychosexual immaturity among seminarians and priests today and whether it may be time to conduct something akin to the famous Loyola Study carried out by Eugene Kennedy in the 70s—work that the Dulles Research Institute would readily take on.
SOME PRIESTS’ PARAPHILIAS TAKE PRECEDENCE OVER A SEXUAL ORIENTATION. Sipe notes that, where a diagnosis of paraphilia is appropriate, categories such as ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’ may not apply. He writes, “Of the 6 percent of priests involved with children or minors . . . 3 percent are so clearly dominated by their paraphilias that the sexual orientation is secondary.” (22)
SAME-SEX ABUSE OF ADOLESCENTS MAY BE REPORTED AT A HIGHER RATE. Dr. Sipe’s extensive clinical research led him to conclude that, among priests who act out sexually with adolescents, “this group is about evenly divided between heterosexual and homosexual orientations.” He went on to observe, however, that “the homosexual contacts are four times more likely to come to the attention of parents or authorities, especially if the sexual involvement stops short of intercourse in heterosexual cases.” (23)
Put simply, these cases make it clear that a priest’s having acted out with an adolescent male does not, ipso facto, mean that he is a homosexual.
More importantly, the fact that a seminarian has identified himself as a homosexual, or that he has engaged in gay sex prior to ordination, means he is statistically LESS likely to abuse minors than one who is confused about his sexual identity or who has had no romantic dating experience. (24)
If that’s the case, then excluding from the seminary those men who admitted to same-sex attraction or experience would not have prevented the abuse we know about, since
most of those who ended up abusing minors didn’t identify as gay or have gay sex before ordination.
Careful research is needed, then, to determine whether a policy of excluding from the seminary self-identified homosexuals and men with a history of same-sex experience is well advised, or whether it carries a danger of further exacerbating the problem by encouraging secrecy, duplicity, and confusion about sexual identity—a clearly identified risk factor for future abuse.
Currently, the most useful tool for weeding out potential abusers seems to be a thorough psychosexual history done by professionals. One of the most noted clinicians in the field of sexual abuse by clergy, psychologist Msgr. Stephen Rossetti writes, “The clinician looks for the candidate having achieved normal psychosexual milestones as well as the presence of any signs of psychosexual deviancy. These clinicians have already saved the Church from many potentially disastrous situations.” (25)
Not Yet Fully Understood
So . . .
We have seen that self-identified homosexuals are at a lower risk for sexually abusing minors than seminarians who are confused about their sexual identity or who exhibit other kinds of psychosexual immaturity.
We have also seen that same-sex incidents far outnumber opposite-sex incidents when it comes to reports of the abuse of teenagers by Catholic priests. (26)
Add to this the undeniable fact that homosexual men make up a significantly larger percentage of the Catholic priest population than they do of the population in general—for reasons that remain to be thoroughly researched.
Do these three facts have anything to do with one another?
In his analysis of the John Jay Causes and Context report, Bill Donohue makes clear that he does not see homosexuality as the cause of sexual abuse of minors in the church. “On the other hand,” he writes, “where overrepresentation (or underrepresentation) exists, it does so for a reason.” And he calls on social scientists to tell us the truth about what this really means. (27)
Donohue’s call here makes sense: Shouldn’t these data lead to deeper studies? That is exactly what the Dulles Research Institute intends to do.
Even if homosexuality is not a cause or a predictor of abuse, does the presence of large numbers of gay men in the priesthood tell us anything worth noting in our study of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church? (28) Msgr. Stephen Rossetti insists,
“The relationship between homosexuality and child sexual abuse [in the Catholic Church] is complicated and not fully understood.” (29)
Acknowledging that there is much we still don’t understand, in the fall of 2018 Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco took the controversial step of asking the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to commission a study of the relationship between gay priests and sexual abuse of minors. He insisted, “I would hasten to point out there is a temptation to jump to an over-simplistic conclusion, which is that there is a direct causal connection between the presence of homosexual priests and bishops in the clergy and the sexual abuse of minors. It’s tempting, maybe, for some to jump to that conclusion, but obviously it cannot be true because there are priests with a homosexual inclination who do not abuse minors that are serving the Church well, and heterosexually-oriented priests who do abuse and are serving the Church poorly.” To his mind, such a study would end up helping the many gay priests who serve the Church honorably: “Not only will it help us get to the root of the problem, but we will be doing a service to many good priests who risk being wrongly and unjustly maligned by those who would like quick and easy answers. We need to support them, too.” (30)
The Need for Independent Research
Why would innocent priests be unjustly maligned?
Alas, when it comes to this issue, more is going on than a search for the truth. Identifying a primary cause for the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church has become a tragic game of tug-o-war for polarized factions within the church. At one extreme, the crisis is presented as being entirely the result of mandatory celibacy; at the other extreme, it is claimed to be purely the result of homosexual priests. In reality, the John Jay studies found that there is no single cause and no fool-proof predictor of sexual abuse by clergy. “Neither celibacy nor homosexuality were causes of the abuse,” according to Dr. Karen Terry, the study’s principal investigator. (31) It’s much more complicated than that. But polarized factions in the church benefit from the illusion of a simple solution—one that supports their ecclesio-political agenda.
During the 2019 Notre Dame forum, “Rebuild My Church,” clergy abuse survivor Juan Carlos Cruz offered a passionate warning that there are those in the church who are
“weaponizing victims”
for the purpose of advancing their own agendas for the church. (32)
By way of example, note the glee with which some conservative outlets received the news of the Sullins report (33), which purported to see both a notable increase in clergy abuse cases over the past fifteen years (34), and a perfect correlation between the numbers of homosexual priests and the numbers of male abuse victims. (35) Apart from the fact that Sullins’ claims are unsupported except by the statistical sleight of hand in his paper (36), one ought to wonder why anyone would celebrate the finding of one particular cause of the abuse crisis vis-a-vis another. To quote Bill Donohue,
“It is the job of the social scientist to follow the evidence, and not be driven by ideological concerns.” (37)
The search for solutions should be a search for the TRUTH, whatever it may be—not a search for ways to prop up one’s presuppositions. Sullins’ paper, it should be noted, is published on behalf of The Ruth Institute, an organization whose stated goal is “to change the cultural narrative” by upholding “the ancient Christian teachings about marriage, family, and human sexuality.” (38) Whether or not one finds that to be a worthy objective, it is not a recipe for unbiased research.
Solutions to this crisis will come from careful, unbiased research, not from apologetics.
The journal in which Sullins’ paper appears, The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, plainly states, “We do not publish any work advancing views that are clearly contrary to the established teachings of the Catholic Church.” (39)
By contrast, the Journal of the Dulles Research Institute’s editorial policy states that, “The JDRI . . . does not exclude articles on the basis of the conclusions reached. While the JDRI focuses on the problem of sexual abuse and harassment in the Catholic Church, it welcomes the work of scholars without regard to the author’s religious affiliation or the article’s doctrinal implications.”
The Dulles Research Institute is proud of its unbiased approach to studying the sexual abuse and harassment crisis in the Catholic Church. And for that reason, it will gladly undertake research on the relationship between homosexuality and child sexual abuse by clergy, with no preference for what the outcomes of such a study might be. The DRI’s team of researchers is made up of scholars from multiple disciplines, representing a variety of perspectives within each discipline. This diversity, coupled with a shared commitment to academic rigor, allows the team to challenge one another’s biases and hold one another accountable for the highest standards of academic honesty. The DRI Vision Statement puts it like this: “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.” (40)
It is not the role of the DRI to make policy or to engage in advocacy. And it is not the DRI’s role to concern itself with which findings and outcomes of its studies are compatible with the teachings and discipline of the Catholic Church. But it is the hope of the entire DRI team that our independent pursuit of rigorous, unbiased, agenda-free, evidence-based scholarly research, will provide the solid data and analyses that can enable policy makers in the church and in society to enact well-informed decisions.