Posted on 11/16/2006 9:54:57 AM PST by presidio9
The US Roman Catholic Church has asked a criminology school to delve into the darkest pages of its history by probing the causes of a priest sex abuse scandal.
At a meeting due to end Thursday in the eastern city of Baltimore, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to disburse 335,000 dollars to fund the first three phases of a study by New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
"It will be a groundbreaking study, never done before in the US, nor in the world," Bishop Gregory Aymond, who chairs the Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People, told AFP.
"We don't know what would come out of it, but we are going to tell the truth," said Aymond, of Austin, Texas.
In 2002, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice had made a list of complaints and pedophilia cases in the US Catholic Church since 1985, when one of the first scandals came to light with the case of a Louisiana priest.
The university will now look into the "social and historical context" of sex abuse to see if such cases are more frequent in the Church than in the rest of society, notably in schools and youth clubs, Aymond said.
The Church wants to "look at what is unique" in the priest sex abuse crisis, he said.
The first part of the study would be completed in 2008 and made public, although the names of suspected priests would be omitted.
In the second part, the university will evaluate the Church leadership's response to sex abuse cases.
"We want to see where we failed and made some mistakes, and learn from those who handled it well," Aymond said.
The study will also paint a psychological profile of pedophiliac priests by reviewing cases in treatment centers.
The review will aim to show "to what extent is a priest sexual abuser profile the same as the psychological profile of the non-priests who are sex offenders," Aymond said.
The university will also interview abuse victims and examine education at seminaries over the decades.
The majority of priests accused of sex abuse were trained in the 1960s and 1970s in seminaries where psychological tests and sexuality education have since been introduced.
A final phase of the study will make proposals on how to prevent sex abuse and help victims.
"Our goal is to ascertain the causes of the clergy sexual abuse crisis and if we need to change any method we have now," said Teresa Kettlekamp, the executive director of the bishops conference's Office of Child and Youth Protection, which was created in 2002, in the wake of the sex abuse scandal.
But the study would also be useful to schools and youth groups, Church officials said.
"The pathology of abusing children isn't unique; it's a societal problem," Kettlekamp said.
"We are hoping it will be a big, big help to the society in general," she said.
Still, this is no evidence that he was married. Only your assumption which is not backed by scripture or Tradition.
PS: interestingly, most of my large Italian Catholic family is no longer one of the above (guess which). They too started reading the Bible and now are protestants.
The exception proves the rule. He also has the naive idea that there are huge numbers of married men who wish to become priests. That is to forget that many wives don't want to be the wife of a clergyman. The Greek Church has a large number of priests who are celibate because they couldn't find a wife before they wee ordained.
I have it -- pedophiles are attracted to the Church because:
1. easy access to children
2. authority over children
3. authority over gullible parents
4. a free nice place to live
5. maid service, free travel, free rent
6. easy job
7. When caught, the Church will protect and "forgive"
8. People of faith are easy to play for fools.
Pedophiles are also attracted to being camp counselors for the following reasons:
1. easy access to children
2. authority over children
3. some authority over gullible parents
4. lower educational requirement than becoming a priest
5. salary and benefits
Pedophiles are also attracted to being Ministers and Teachers for the following reasons:
1. easy access to children
2. authority over children
3. some authority over gullible parents
4. lower educational requirement than becoming a priest
5. salary and benefits
The Catholic Church needs to get it's head out of the sand and fire people who condone evil. They are part of the problem
Amen to that! You wouldn't believe all of the people in my office who spout nonsense about the Catholic Church and her teachings that supposedly went to Catholic School.
evangelicals is a very very broad term.
For example if a church is in san francisco and is "christian" which says there is nothing wrong with homosexuals sodomizing each other or recruiting, that still gets put in the evangelical population because it is not a traditional church.
Evangelical means "not traditional".
Ie Wallis' socialist propaganda is evangelical.
The Greek Church also has many Decons who are not yet ordained because they are not yet married and will not take their final vows until they are married.
(have a friend in that position)
Paul was a "young man" when they stoned St. Stephen. There is no indication anywhere in scripture or oral tradition that he had a wife.
Probably he'd never been married.
Not to my knowledge. Assuming you mean castrati as oppopsed to a metaphorical usage of the word, I'm not aware of having ever met a eunuch.
But then, I can't remember the subject ever coming up in conversation.
I have dear friends who are practicing Catholics who are quite clueless. Cradle means little, IMO.
I have four American-English dictionaries covering words for over 125 years. Only the most recently-published dictionary has dropped the word "pederast". Pederast means sex between men and young boys.
When I contacted my neighbor about this (Liberal of course—Wisconsin Academia), he ridiculed the use of the word. Even Howie Carr gave up after a few uses during the Velvet Mafia crisis.
Continuing to use "pedophile" where "pederast" is spot-on, will obfuscate this discussion forever.
These Bishops are also the ones who were enamored of the feminist movement, and were like sails in the wind when it came to experimenting with the Liturgy. Fortunately, for us here in America, those men are either retired, or near to it. The younger Bishops who were more recently installed by Pope John Paul II, and, I daresay, will be, by Pope Benedict, seem to be more faithful to the Church's teachings, especially on sexuality.
John Paul II had a problem with folks accusing priests or Bishops of practicing homosexuality because of the tradition in which he grew up. It was common practice in Poland to accuse one's political enemies of being homosexual in order to advance one's own star in the ruling firmament. The Pope was very sensitive to accusations because of this ingrained idea, maybe to the detriment of we in America who DID have a problem with this. I believe that Pope Benedict will steer the Church everywhere, but especially here in America, back on course.
Palms must be greased after all for God's sake. LOL!
Next, they had no problem endorsing homosexuals, so long as they didn't "practice" their sin, which pretty much consumes homosexuals' lifestyle sooner or later.
Maybe "palms greased" wasn't the greatest metaphor in the world for the problem discussed.
No, it doesn't. I have known many priest in my 53 years, and there is only one of whom I can say I might have had doubts about his sexual orientation. I have known a few men who left the priesthood to marry, unfortunately, a couple of them found that marriage wasn't the answer either. Again, I believe it is because they were not taught HOW to be chaste and the importance of that state for their vow of celibacy, and they thought that marriage would cure whatever longing they had.
The vast majority of priests I have known have been stable, content men. I will admit I'm prejudiced because my husband's brother is a priest, and has been for over 35 years.
Sould do the same thing Paul told the church in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 when they had sexual immorality among them.
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It's pretty typical these days. Post an article which addresses a Catholic issue and out come the Protestants to criticize and object to all things Catholic. :)
When the pool of candidates is so small, the void is filled with men with abnormal sexual habits.
Perhaps, if priest were allowed to have a wife or girlfriend they wouldn't have such a 'problem'.
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