The John Jay Report indicated that 4.0% of all priests in the US between 1950 and 2002 had been accused of sexual abuse of a minor. This datum, and the numerous commentaries surrounding the horrific news of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, have been cited as evidence against the discipline of celibacy in the Roman Catholic clergy. Prominent psychotherapists, such as Richard Sipe, have argued that celibacy has been a factor contributing to criminal sexual conduct by clerics over the last half-century. Even Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna recently suggested that the issue of priestly celibacy should not be ignored in discussions of the sex-abuse scandals in Europe.
The argument against priestly celibacy– the argument that celibacy is a contributing factor in sexual abuse– has never been examined in the context of statistics showing abuse rates in other clerical populations that do not require celibacy. Such a comparison between clergy populations is critical, because if celibacy were a major factor in the abuse over the last half-century, then one would expect to see much lower abuse rates in the clergy of other communions. If on the contrary celibacy were unrelated (or even a safeguard against abuse) then the other clergy groups would likely show comparable or even higher levels of abuse.
Wouldn’t be a hoot if the stats ended up showing that celibacy among clergy actually lowered the rate of child abuse! Actually, I think that’s quite plausible.
While the data from the Anglican Church in Australia is incomplete and less extensive that the Catholic data from the US, it does at least suggest that celibacy isn’t the major contributing factor to increased clergy sexual abuse of minors that it’s often presumed to be. I welcome this study, but it really doesn’t prove much. A lot more research would be needed to shed light on this murky topic.
But besides comparisons between Protestant and Catholic clergy rates of abuse, it would be helpful to compare that 4% rate that the John Jay Report came up for RC priests with against other professional groups in secular fields that work with youth, e.g., school teachers, coaches, counselors, etc.
David Handy+
The title alone is strange…
“Does Celibacy Contribute to Clerical Sex Abuse?”
Isn’t that the same as asking, “Do gun cases and gun locks contribute to murder?”
I do know that my celibacy in my teen years produced no children nor any sex abuse.
Don
The question is flawed. Are the posers of this question really suggesting that they would prefer a scenario whereby this monstrous abusers were married? Really?
This study will prove nothing, whatever the “results”, for one simple reason: There is simply no way of knowing whether the reported amount of sexual abuse is any reflection of the real amount of sexual abuse. If you cannot be certain of one of your key parameters, then any conclusions deriving from that have no validity.
Incredibly, the author thinks that he can derive valid measurements in several different jurisdictions or churches. That is, he assumes that he can obtain accurate figures for the REAL rate of sexual abuse in the Australian Anglican church, the Church of England, other Anglican churches, and the Roman Catholic Church in many different nations. Talk about utterly unjustified assumptions!
The study will be a complete waste of time.
Anglicans do not have priestly celibacy for a quite different reason: because Scripture does not require it, and indeed frowns on it (except on a case-by-case basis).
Another thing, when does “sex abuse” qualify as one aspect of, and included with, “celibacy”?
Don
Anything Richard Sipe contributes to this argument should be suspect. I believe he is an ex priest who has made it his life’s mission to prove the Church wrong in this matter and many others.
The more data the better, particularly those that compare similarly situated people with fewer differences – married v. single, self-identified as straight v. gay, coaches, teachers, clergy, camp counsellors, psychologists, etc. My guess is that abuse falls in the 3% at the end of the normal distribution curve.
The data will never be clear because the Roman Catholic approach to celibacy does not characterize the sexual tastes of incoming seminarians nor the effects of going through seminaries wherein homosexuality is rife. Comparisons will give false effects; and these false effects will be used to establish whatever the user feels most favors his persuasion. Statistically, this approach is meaningless; more data, if the approach is maintained, will produce more cross categories and false effects, not the reverse.
It is worth saying the obvious here: Celibacy runs absolutely counter to evolution’s most powerful mandate. As the margarine ad said, “It’s not wise to fool with Mother Nature.” The RC Church has, and its abuse problem has therefore been there for generations.
Will permission to marry cure the RC abuse problem? Only the sense that there will be less and less reason for homosexuals to fill the seminaries. With their removal, the abuse issue will lessen because the bulk of the abuse cases are homosexual. Larry
Larry, you might find that Jesus ran counter to some of Nature’s most powerful mandates as well; He defied both physical desire, and the more powerful Death. He has triumphed over nature, and allows us the grace to do the same.
Ah?
When did he defy physical desire? Moreover, He didn’t “triumph” over death. Obviously, he died. As he said he would have to that he might send us the Comforter. He was transfigured as rose, but this is not in defiance of nature; this is after he paid nature’s price.
Were his miracles in defiance of natural law? This is a definition problem. I would argue that they are not since their source is that from which nature has derived its power and identity. With all due respect, my argument stands. Larry
11. …
I don’t know what the Church specifically teaches on miracles, but just as a layman with a layman’s knowledge of such things, I would say that miracles are miracles precisely because they defy natural law. (Water into wine, etc.)
I do not think that God is bound by natural law just because He created it.
Atheists use that in arguing that if everything has a first principle and God supposedly created the universe with its laws, then where did God come from? — The answer being that if God created the universe and its laws, He created the laws of causality and is not bound by them. I would say that the same principle can be applied to God and natural law.
Beg pardon #@12, but since there is no thing in the universe that is not His handiwork, then he cannot violate His own laws. The phrase, for God, is meaningless. Some things seem miraculous to us because we are bound by a set of laws made for us and which we cannot violate, try as we might. We are the thing contained, and cannot know the container save in a limited way. We will never be able to get outside the container – although our vanity will often lead us into thinking we can.
Larry