But barbers don’t go into a line of work that has any regulations one way or the other around sexuality. Priests do, so it’s logical that we’d at least wonder if there was a connection. And I think to be completely politically correct and shove blinders around the issue does it a disservice. Yes, I might agree with you that the incidence of pedophilia is no higher among the priesthood (I don’t agree with you, by the way, I think it’s both more looked for and better covered up. And no, there’s no evidence, just my own experiences and the cultural evidence that there’s not a lot of “pedophile barber” jokes) but even if I do agree with you, it doesn’t logically follow that no pedophile ever entered the priesthood to escape their desires or that we can’t ask the question.
In fact, I know two men personally who did. Both of them have never touched a child, but both had urges, and both chose to study with a religious group who they felt had valuable teachings about reducing the sex drive and using will and faith to overcome their urges. Perhaps just as many pedophiles turn to alcohol to numb their urges and so become bartenders. Perhaps just as many decide to only work with adults and limit their access to young children, and so become barbers. The fact that the ratio is the same doesn’t mean that the motivation isn’t different.
I feel like you’re going “la la la” with your fingers in your ears focusing on just the question of prevalence of pedophilia in the priesthood and the comparison to the population at large, when that’s really a side issue. I know the OP brought it up, but I think she muddied the issue in doing so.
The OP asks “why is there such a prevalence of child molesters in the Church?” The entire question in the OP hinges on the priesthood either attracting or creating pedeophiles. As Bricker correctly points out there is no evidence that child molestation is any more prevalent in the Catholic priesthood than in the general population. If there aren’t more abusers in the priesthood, then there is no support for the speculation that enforced abstinence creates abusers or that inate abusers seek refuge or access through the priesthood. If there is no deviation from the standard rates there is nothing to discuss and the motivation of any individual is moot.
It doesn’t but there are unquestionably individuals who believe and hope that a religious life, especially an ascetic one, will “cure” them, or relieve their desires or allow them to atone for past sins. That’s not to say that they will be successful but there are certainly people who sincerely think that God can cure them if they are repentant and prayerful enough.
The only reason the proportion of molesters who are priests seems to be greater in relation to the rest of the population(an estimated 5% of which is sexually attracted to children - probably a low figure) is because of their position in society. Seperate a priest from his calling and he is just another perverted criminal.
There’s got to be a thousand different jobs a person could take that give them unsupervised access to children. All of them are easier than being a priest. All of them are less conspicious. All of them allow you to get married and have lots of sex - which is a better cover for a pedophile than entering the priesthood. The Church has a long history of pedophilia within the clergy.
the OP’s question:
I’m sure they do. If their conscience is torturing them, anything that they devote their life to is likely to be done with “escaping their desires” in mind.
There are **three **questions in the OP. Count 'em: 3.
Did the pedophiliac priests enter the Church to escape their desires?
Or was it the other way around - were the desires created by an enforced abstinence?
why is there such a prevalence of child molesters in the Church?
I agree that three is a very controversial question, obviously. I think it can’t be answered while the Catholic Church refuses indipendent investigations. The numbers they give us say that there is not a higher percentage of pedophilia among priests than among the general population. DtC, harborwolf, and I (and others) don’t believe them, but have no way of collecting our own data. OK, so let’s ignore 3 for a while, since the only thing we can agree on is that we can’t agree on it.
What about one and two? They are NOT dependent on how may pedophilic priests there are, or whether there’s more or less of them than in the general population. We could have just one single pedophile priest in the whole entire world and still attempt to answer questions one and two.
If they did then you would expect a higher % of Priests to be paedophile than the general populace of males. Have we any evidence that more Priests are paedophiles than the general male populace.
If they did then you would expect a higher % of Priests to be paedophile than the general populace of males. Have we any evidence that more Priests are paedophiles than the general male populace.
Is there a prevalence?
Now the question “Does enforced abstinance lead to higher incidencies of Paedophilic tendancies?” can be asked at the beginning of a debate.
We would then say, “what would be a group of people living in a situation of enforced abstinance?” to wich the answer could be “Catholic Priests”
We then need to determine a control group with as similar a situation as possible to Catholic Priests except for no enforced abstinance. How about Episcapalian Priests. BINGO.
Now if anyone can show that paedophilia is more common in a statistically significant amount within the ranks of Catholic rather than Episcapalean priests, then and only then could it make sence to ask “Why does enforced abstinance lead to higher rates of paedophilia?”
To skip any of these (or similarly structured consideration) would lead to asking a meaningless question.
Ad-absurdum it would be like asking what type of cheese is the moon made of, whilst refusing to consider arguments that the moon may not actually be made of cheese.
is it possible that we expect, based on their supposed position of moral superiority, a lower percentage of pedophilic priests than those present in the general population? perhaps that is why not only do we hear more about the stories of pedophilic priests than pedophilic barbers, but we find them more intriguing. suburban murders, for instance, draw our attention more than inner-city murders because we don’t expect them to happen, whereas we’re used to hearing about inner-city murders.
if that is the case, it completely makes sense to ask why we see a higher percentage of pedophilic priests than we expect.
and i’ll add myself to the ranks of those who believe there are more criminal pedophiles/ephebophiles/pederasts in frocks than in the general public. at the very least, one must believe that the greater opportunity leads to a greater exercise of the desires.
Why? Perhaps other males enter therapy, or other jobs that provide their own escape. I don’t see a logical progression to your statement
Why? It’s generally agreed that there are pedophilic tendancies and pedophillic triggers. Perhaps men in the general population are triggered by other triggers, while priests are triggered by something in the priesthood. Again, your statement isn’t logical.
(OK, last time, and then I’ll stop banging my head.)
Fred is a priest. Fred is a pedophile. Do you think, or is there any evidence, case studies or anecdotes, that Fred become a priest to escape his desires, or were his desires created by an enforced abstinence rewuired by his church? Was he a pedophile before or after he became a priest?
Like I said before, IF we accept the proposition the priests and the general public are pedophiles at the same rate, THEN we can assume only that priests and the general public
A. are pedophiles for the same reasons
or
B. are pedophiles (at the same rate) for different reasons.
aren’t all pedophiles pedophiles for about the same reasons, or, at least, do we not believe that one’s job does not lead one to be a pedophile (i mentioned earlier that one’s job can lead one to act on those urges more than others)? do we want to discuss why pedophiles are priests or why priests are pedophiles?
Given the A or B choice of Why Not’s we simply apply occam’s razor and say. Since the inscidence level is the same, then the simlest complete solution would be that the cause of those incidences is the same. So witohut more details we must chose A.
We could also go into speculation (this is GD not GQ) in which case any number of theories could be imagined, but we would have little or no way of telling which are good and which are bad.
Theory. Feeling Paedophilia is a sin, the Christian chooses to live abstinately, to help achieve this he joins the priesthood where abstinance is expected.
Theory. Paedophiles are also attrcted to echlesiastical men, because of this they chose a job where they get to meet many echlisiastical men.
Theory. Wearing lots of black clothing all the time and getting up early makes people more likely to become paedophiles.
Each one of those theories would lead to an increase in the average number of paedophiles within the priesthood, something we have no evidence for. So we must either reject them, or expand the theory to equalise the numbers again.
so
Theory adjunct: Paedophilic tendancies amongst people who speak latin reduce rapidly with age, compared to non latin speaking populace.
… I hope you see now that until we have some data to work with, Occam’s razor is the best and sainest way to go.
“Patrick Murphy was a normal, healthy, well-adjusted heterosexual , 22 year old male when he entered the seminary. He was ordained 2 years later. He was a good priest, but after ten years of celibacy, he was just so unbearably horny that little boys suddenly started to look good to him.”
A priest like Patrick Murphy may cope with his sexual frustrations any number of ways. He may quit the priesthood and get married; he may have an affair with a woman on the sly; he may take a lot of cold showers; he may just immerse himself in his work. But he does NOT start lusting after boys.
I don’t accept taht there is such a prevalence, just a few who brought the attention of the media. Anyway I could see someone w/ these tendancies trying to divorce that urge through a life devoted to God.
Well, he might. Not right away, but the human sex drive is a funny & fluid thing. In a state of frustration, it can get desperate, weirdly desperate, like a ravenous man trying to eat patent leather. I’m not saying he would, but those who haven’t tried to be chaste throughout their 20’s don’t really know what it’s like to have your previous sexual assumptions blown away by sex-hunger. (But yeah, it’s probable that most of these guys end up sinning with women or teen girls; & the ones with teen girls get called pedophiles.)
That said, the real scandal is that the Church mishandled its “pedophiles,” trying short rehab stints & reässignments instead of long-term treatment & defrocking. And the reason for this mismanagement may be that the dominant culture is not pedophilic, & is chaste, & just sees this as the sort of temptation a priest can overcome, because “that’s what we all do.”
As for the argument that we can’t argue this because we don’t have the data, that’s silly. Consider it a moot argument, then. And certainly we don’t have any data saying that priests are pedophilic, or hebephilic, or ephebophilic in the same incidence as the general population. So we certainly can’t argue from that assumption.
There may be a higher incidence of (so-called) pedophilia among priests. There even may be a strong culture of sexually perverted priests. Or there may be a lower incidence of “pedophilia” among priests, with a few cases infamously mishandled. It would be an awesome coincidence if so small & exclusive a club had exactly the same incidence of “pedophilia” & sex crimes against youth as the general population. But we have incomplete data on priests & on the general population, & always will be potentially missing some proportion of sex crimes–let alone what somebody is thinking–so it’s hard to say for certain whether the incidence of this sort of thing is higher or lower in the priesthood. That doesn’t mean we can’t discuss what it could be, based on known data.
While these are questions of fact, to be answered by empirical data, our a priori hypothesizing can help us extrapolate what may be the case when our data are incomplete & unreliable (which they are), & help us ask the right questions when we start to do empirical research.
Remember, without empiricism, there is no basis for any logical argument; but knowledge is always imperfect, so we need to argue the unknown as well.
Interesting thing here - I don’t know about the other Christian denominations, but rabbis aren’t required to be celibate. So that would seem to discount the celibacy-pedophilia link, at least in this instance.
It may be that a person would pursue a religious career because of a perception that he would be entering a community with standards of sexual behavior and a community of accountability that would reinforce his efforts to abstain. A real life problem with this is that, because of the scandals of the last few years, a propensity toward pedophilia might be a difficult one to admit even within the bounds of priest-bishop confidentiality. I’ve served as a clergyperson in two denominations and each has communicated to its clergy that a confession of any of several types of sexual misbehavior would essentially result in being cut loose from one’s position of service and possibly from any overt support at all. This does not result in an environment that is conducive to serious requests for help.
It seems to me that a calling to a religious vocation in a monastery might be a legitimate and effective course for such a person. A hurdle here might be the discernment process imposed by the particular monastery – I doubt a vocation would be encouraged if one’s PRIMARY motivation for entry to the order happened to be a struggle with a particular sexual behaviour. IANA monk, but my perception is that they look for candidates who feel themselves being called TO the monastery rather than AWAY from the world.
I tend to agree with you that Catholic doctrine with respect to redemption (and the sanctity of the confessional) are in some ways a “problem” with respect to resolving issues of misbehaving priests. However, I think that the public perception of a diocese shuffling problem priests around is closer to the truth than the reality you describe (though your description may be factually correct). To reassign a priest to a new parish without some method of monitoring, some ongoing effort to protect the parishioners, is just shuffling the problem. Once the first reformed pedophile priest has a relapse the Diocese has to be aware that it is a problem (or at least a possibility) and either monitor the situation or offer other employment to the priests - one away from the temptations offered in the parish setting (while struggling with temptation may be good for the priest’s soul, in this life it is not the priest who bears the burden of the priest’s failure). By not going further than treating and moving the priest the diocese comes very close to being just another corporation protecting its brand name.
Well, having been brought up in and around the environment of Catholic schools, I do believe there will be a goodly number of people becoming priests, monks or nuns in the hope that life under the structure of religious discipline will result in a divine gift of better handling of whatever it they are struggling with internally. Sexuality, mother/father issues, social maladjustment, whatever.
Although indeed we do not have sufficient info to know if there is a prevalence(*) of pedophilia (and if I understand correctly the OP has agreed to withdraw that statement), in regard to the alternatives posed as to why there are any pedo-priests I believe it’s likelier a case of people who were pedophiles or had pedophilic tendencies (known OR latent) to begin with, entered the priesthood/religious orders, and it only made matters worse(**), rather than the celibacy “twisting” people into pedophiles – if only because I see enough reports of noncelibate ministers accused of fooling around with boys and girls.
(*There is certainly a proliferation of reporting, but this may be sampling bias due to 40 years’ worth of cover-up popping up all at once now)
(**Even if they were themselves unaware of these tendencies at first, once they surface they still may take one of the tacks: decide this life’s not for them; OR seek in it a way to overcome or escape from their problem, OR discover in it a convenient “cover” from which to act out. That’s a whole 'nother issue.)
But (“normal”) ravenous people will not try to eat the patent leather while on the other side of the road sits in plain view a garden full of ripe tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplant – even if it means stealing the produce while running from a guard-dog (OK, so they may eat the guard-dog. Still better than that shoe). As you said, most “normal” people, if overpowered by their sex drive, will just have an affair with another adult of their sex-of-preference, or quit the orders.
Yes, that was mentioned before and was part of the failure of the hierarchy. A misapprehension of the nature of the problem, of the pathology behind the symptom, and of the corrective measures necessary When a majority of your members ARE able to whitstand THEIR temptations, you begin thinking that EVERYONE can do it.
Of course, you also get the element of “groupthink” complicating matters – in the particular case of the RCC, there was already a standing defensive attitude about how “outsiders” (Protestant, Nonchristian AND specially Secular) view their doctrines – with the doctrines of sexual morality in particular prominence. The Powers That Be had become extra defensive about hiding any severe breakdown in that area (in the end it was in vain anyway).
Which puts the churches (and the perpetrating or merely tempted-and-struggling clergyman) in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. Part of the problem over all these years got complicated with the manpower shortages in the priesthood; combine that with the longstanding docrine that the person’s moral corruption does NOT impair his office’s sacramental capacity, and you can see the roots of some Really Bad Decision-Making.
The Catholic Church’s strong belief in moral redemption and the ability to change through grace also may have interacted disastrously with other contemporaneous (and not necessarily Catholic at all) notions:
That the priest, or any other “fallen” person, was more to be pitied than censured. Remember, it’s only comparatively recently that we as a culture have viewed children as a species apart. It may seem ridiculous now to assume that a youngster “tempted” a priest (or any adult) into molesting her or him, but in an era when “childhood” wasn’t necessarily viewed as a sacrosanct separate state of being, and when people grew up faster and entered (married) sexual relationships in their teens, adolescents, in particular, were not necessarily viewed as asexual, off-limits beings, nor was there necessarily any widespread recognition of/proof for the lasting trauma that most of us now would accept is inherent for the child/teen in any exploitative sexual relationship with an authority figure.
What segment of society can be particularly proud of how they dealt with sexual abuse of children? People didn’t know it was going on, didn’t want to know, wouldn’t recognize the signs if it were, and so it often went unseen, in every walk of life. Look at popular culture; we wince now when we hear about Lewis Carroll’s obsessive interest in his young proteges, or watch a pubescent Shirley Temple vamping it up with some creepy bandleader. But people back then honestly preferred to think nothing odd was going on. The cannibal murderer Albert Fish killed one girl whom he’d casually offered to “take to a little friend’s birthday party” about ten minutes after he showed up at her parents’ house to talk to their son about a job in answer to an ad. The parents (to our modern astonishment) saw no problem in sending their kid off to parts unknown with a strange old man they’d never met – does that mean they were idiots or wanted their daughter dead? My own father recounted stories of some weird old service station attendant who was always interested in the neighborhood boys. The lucky ones, I guess, had some gut-level reaction that saved them from trouble. But there was no organized education or prevention campaign anywhere.
The inability to understand what was going on tied in with a credulity to believe that when it happened, it might well be an isolated incident. In the same way, alcoholics driving drunk were viewed as having had lapses in judgment that, if they weren’t too deadly, could indeed be remediated by promising to cut it out. “Shuffling from parish to parish” sounds pretty bad, in view of the modern consensus that there’s no way these guys would ever stop offending if given the opportunity. Fair enough, and there’s probably (now) objective evidence that this is factually so. Back then, if the guy swore it’d been a momentary lapse, and he’d never repeat it if given a fresh start, it wasn’t objectively imbecilic to be tempted to believe him. This just proves the Church, like society at large, had a poor understanding of the nature of pedophilia, and was perhaps trying to “put the unfortunate isolated incident behind everyone for their own mutual good.” Well, we now know that the “isolated incident” part of that was wishful thinking.
Psychology has been so all over the map over the past hundred years that there have been any number of completely non-religious or non-cover-up theories that would have justified (and were relied on to justify) “second chances.” Hey, if we Freudians just cure his, um, Oedipal fixation, or wait, his “anal-stage-retarded-development,” through some heavy dream therapy, or electroshock, or est, the problem will be solved! Especially as the modern therapeutic age progressed, the Church’s inherent tendency toward trying to let individuals remediate their “sins” was legitimized or found parallel support in various pseudo-scientific therapeutic concepts. Again, we now know or suspect that pedophiles tend not to be cured of their urges, by anything. But it wasn’t only the Catholic Church that was glibly assuring or hoping that the right combination of prayer/therapy/whatever could effectuate such a cure.