French clergy have sexually abused more than 200,000 children over the past 70 years, a major investigation released Tuesday found, and its authors accused the Catholic Church of turning a blind eye for too long.
The revelations in France are the latest to rock the Roman Catholic Church after a series of sexual abuse scandals around the world, often involving children, over the past 20 years.
The commission was established by Catholic bishops in France at the end of 2018 to shed light on abuses and restore public confidence in the church at a time of dwindling congregations. It has worked independently from the Church.
The church had shown “deep, total and even cruel indifference for years,” protecting itself rather than the victims of what was systemic abuse, said Jean-Marc Sauve, head of the commission that compiled the report.
(“French clergy sexually abused more than 200,000 children, probe finds.”Reuters. October 05, 2021.)
Some things are just too horrible to comprehend. They test our faith in humanity and make us search for answers. Abuse of children is horrifically unfathomable. None more so than the sexual victimization of children. When a clergy member perpetrates this victimization, the crime is especially heinous. When we hear about such ungodly abuse, we naturally tend to focus on the betrayal of trust in religious officials.
Yet, the Catholic Church may be the victim of a myth that puts the blame for child sexual abuse unfairly on its clergy's shoulders. Studies show this abuse to be an alarming problem across populations in general. As detestable as a child molesting clergy member may be, we should know that the problem is widespread and threats to children come from many familiar faces. And, it is important not to take the horribly evil actions of some Roman Catholic priests and attribute them to the entire Roman Catholic priesthood.
Despite methodological challenges, recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses that included studies conducted worldwide across hundreds of different age-cohort samples have consistently shown an alarming rate of child sexual abuse, with averages of 18-20% for females and of 8-10% for males, with the lowest rates for both girls (11.3%) and boys (4.1%) found in Asia, and highest rates found for girls in Australia (21.5%) and for boys in Africa (19.3%). Research findings do, however, clearly demonstrate a major lack of congruence between the low number of official reports of CSA to authorities, and the high rates of CSA that youth and adults self-report retrospectively.
(Delphine Collin-Vézina, Isabelle Daigneault & Martine Hébert. “Lessons learned from child sexual abuse research: prevalence, outcomes, and preventive strategies.” Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, Volume 7, Article number: 22. 2013.)
Additional research by Plante and Daniels in Pastoral Psychology (2004) found no empirical data that suggests that Catholic clerics sexually abuse minors at a level higher than clerics from other religious traditions or from other groups of men who have ready access and power over children (e.g., school teachers, coaches).
Furthermore, the study found those who do in fact sexually engage with minors tend to do so with post pubescent boys and not pre-pubescent children and are thus not pedophiles by definition.
The best available data (though admitedly dated) from a variety of sources throughout North America suggests 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.
(Thomas G. Plante and Courtney Daniels. “The Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Roman Catholic Church: What Psychologists and Counselors Should Know.” Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 52, No. 5, May 2004.)
Putting clergy abuse in context, research from the US Department of Education found that about 5-7 percent of public school teachers engaged in similar sexually abusive behavior with their students during a similar time frame.
(Charol Shakeshaft. “Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature Prepared for the U.S. Department of Education Office of the Under Secretary Policy and Program Studies Service. 2004.)
While no comprehensive studies have been conducted with most other religious traditions, a small scale study found that 4 percent of Anglican priests had violated minors in western Canada and many reports have mentioned that clerical abuse of minors is common with other religious leaders and clerics as well.
(Thomas G. Plante and Courtney Daniels. “The Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Roman Catholic Church: What Psychologists and Counselors Should Know.” Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 52, No. 5, May 2004.)
How can a person who professes to be religious abuse a child? Of course, there is nothing more antithetical to the message of Christ than priests sexually abusing children. The answer to the question likely depends upon that person's twisted motivations to assume power and control. Sexual enjoyment can be a motive for abusing a child, but it is not the only one and there are usually also other motives at play.
Some perpetrators certainly suffer from psychological difficulties like obsessions with sex. Others are delusional and feel dominant and entitled. Still others have suffered from domestic violence and bad life experiences themselves. In short, religious officials who abuse children do so for the same reasons other adults commit the crime.
Some adults are primarily sexually attracted to children, and some never act on those feelings. Some adults act impulsively when presented with an unexpected opportunity to sexually abuse a child. Other people, particularly youth with high social status or with social or emotional delays, may not even fully understand the harmful impact of their actions.
A recent literature review by a University of Alberta cult expert and his former graduate student paints a startling and consistent picture of institutional secrecy and widespread protection of those who abuse children in religious institutions "in ways that often differ from forms of manipulation in secular settings."
It's the first comprehensive study exposing patterns of sexual abuse in religious settings.
"Because of religion's institutional standing, religious grooming frequently takes place in a context of unquestioned faith placed in sex offenders by children, parents and staff," they found.
(Susan Raine and Stephen A.Kent. “The grooming of children for sexual abuse in religious settings: Unique characteristics and select case studies.” Aggression and Violent Behavior, Volume 48, September–October 2019.)
To close, we must understand that the prevalence of child sexual abuse is a societal problem. As much as we abhor those in religious roles who take advantage of children, we should approach sexual abuse as a problem found all across our 21st century society.
Child sexual abuse is difficult to determine because it is often not reported; experts agree that the incidence is far greater than what is reported to authorities. CSA is also not uniformly defined, so statistics may vary. Statistics below represent some of the research done on child sexual abuse.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Children’s Bureau report Child Maltreatment 2010 found that 9.2% of victimized children were sexually assaulted.
Studies by David Finkelhor, Director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, show that:
1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys is a victim of child sexual abuse;
Self-report studies show that 20% of adult females and 5-10% of adult males recall a childhood sexual assault or sexual abuse incident;
During a one-year period in the U.S., 16% of youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized;
Over the course of their lifetime, 28% of U.S. youth ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized;
Children are most vulnerable to CSA between the ages of 7 and 13.
According to the Crimes against Children Research Center (2021), about 90% of children who are victims of abuse know their abuser. Only 10% of sexually abused children are abused by a stranger. Those who molest children look and act just like everyone else. There are people who have or will sexually abuse children in churches, schools, and youth sports leagues. Perpetrators can be anyone including family members, family friends, coaches, teachers, clergy, babysitters, and any other acquaintances.
I detest anyone who abuses a child. That said, I believe the Catholic clergy guilty of sexual abuse should face the stiffest criminal prosecution for their crimes. They, perhaps above all, are guilty of the blackest sins against their fellow humans. Still, if the studies are correct, these holy sinners do not commit their terrible deeds in numbers greater than others around us we typically trust to be loving relatives and friends.
My Papa’s Waltz
by Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)The whiskey on your
breath
Could make a small boy dizzy
But I hung on like
death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the
pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s
countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my
wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My
right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my
head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to
bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
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