# What is it about the Catholic Priesthood that attracts so many pedophiles? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 21, 2010, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212 "2010-03-21T05:05:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2010, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/161 "2010-04-15T02:29:32Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Do you have a cite for that? Because the studies I’ve seen indicate that this is NOT necessarily true. Teenage boys are apparently at least as likely to be molested by a straight adult male (especially a family member) as by a gay adult male. Did some research and it depends on several factors: An ephebophile is someone who is attracted _primarily or exclusively_ to post-pubescant teenagers (i.e. past the onset of puberty but barely and probably not fully grown) may or may not be attracted to the same gender in their adult sex drive. It seems to be tied into the sexual maturity level (regardless of age) of the object of their attraction as well. Someone who is attracted to adult men AND to 16 year old boys is gay but not an ephebophile because the adolescence is not a requirement of their lust- it’s just that some 16 year olds are more sexually mature than others, and said person (who I’ll just call “a dirty old man”) is straight then he’ll be attracted to 25 year old women and also the occasional 16 year old girl. In short I’m a bit confused. Apparently ephebophilia is not somebody who finds the occasional underage person desirable (which is just about all of us [not saying all of us would pursue, just most people would be turned on by a physically mature and good looking 16 year old]) but somebody who is almost unattracted to anybody over puberty and if they’re interested in a 16 year old it’s likely to be one on the sexually immature side. In short I’m a bit confused by the various definitions. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2010, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/162 "2010-04-15T04:03:39Z")
I agree that normal homosexual males are more likely to feel **attraction** to 16-year-old boys than normal heterosexual males are (and vice versa for attraction to 16-year-old females). But AFAICT homosexual males are not actually more likely to **molest** underage males than heterosexual males are. In short, there seems to be something about the impulse to sexually abuse minors that’s somehow orthogonal to the abuser’s adult-focused sexual orientation. The extent to which adolescent boys are sexually abused **by their own fathers** :eek: is an illustration of this. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/163 "2010-04-16T15:21:03Z")
I also was curious–why are there so many more male victims than female? In general in terms of child sexual abuse, isn’t abuse of girls much, much more common? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2010, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/164 "2010-04-17T00:13:51Z")
> [@Freudian Slit](#): > > I also was curious–why are there so many more male victims than female? In general in terms of child sexual abuse, isn’t abuse of girls much, much more common? Two words: altar boys. [In US cases of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, 81% of the victims were male](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases#Scope_and_nature). [This article notes](http://www.snapnetwork.org/female_victims/females_often_overlooked.htm) that the percentage of girl victims of sexual abuse by priests may be significantly underreported, but I think the predominance of male victims is mostly because of the much larger role in Church activities traditionally reserved for boys rather than girls. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2010, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/165 "2010-04-22T13:04:38Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > First of all, most of the molesting priests haven’t been pedophiles, they’ve been ephebophiles, which is to say that they’ve been teenagers who are going through adolescence, not preadolescent children. And a professor at Penn State, Phillip Jenkins, has argued, in, among other things, his “Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis”, that there really isn’t a higher rate of sexual abuse and molestation among Catholic priests than among clergymen generally. That’s to say that there are more cases of sexual molestation by Catholic priests than clergymen of other denominations, but that’s because there are more Catholic priests than there are clergymen of other denominations. If you look at percentages, there isn’t a difference. Also, since there is a clerical hierarchy, he says, there’s a higher rate among Catholic priests of molesters being reported and found out. His argument is that the idea of “pedophile priests” is a social construction, brought about by dislike for Catholic clerical celibacy and the patriarchal hierarchy in Catholicism. > > So, when a Baptist minister, a Episcopalian priest or a Jewish rabbi molest children, that doesn’t fit the already constructed model, so the incident is overlooked. Did you actually keep a straight face when you posted that ? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2010, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/166 "2010-04-22T15:11:35Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > Did you actually keep a straight face when you posted that ? Yes. Have you read Jenkins’ book? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2010, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/167 "2010-04-22T15:54:41Z")
It’s not inconceivable to me that sex crimes are underreported among non-Catholic clerics. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2010, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/168 "2010-04-22T16:15:02Z")
The only difference between the Catholic Church and most other churches is that the Catholic Church has a hierarchy that controls who works where. Hence, if a priest molests a 14 year old boy, he answers to a bishop who may answer to another bishop, who may ultimately answer to Rome. Far too often, bishops have paid hush money and then re-assigned guilty priests to other parishes. Does that happen with, say, Baptist churches? Yes and no. If the youth minister at a Baptist megachurch is found to be messing around with teenage boys, he doesn’t have to answer to a bishop. He answers to the church’s board of elders. What will they do? Most likely, the elders will want to avoid embarrassment and scandal, just as Catholic bishops do. So, they’ll ask him to resign quietly, and even give him a decent (though not glowing) letter of recommendation. He’ll move on to another job at another church, and the affair will be kept as hushed up as possible. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2010, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/169 "2010-04-22T17:39:37Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > The only difference between the Catholic Church and most other churches is that the Catholic Church has a hierarchy that controls who works where. Hence, if a priest molests a 14 year old boy, he answers to a bishop who may answer to another bishop, who may ultimately answer to Rome. Far too often, bishops have paid hush money and then re-assigned guilty priests to other parishes. > > Does that happen with, say, Baptist churches? Yes and no. If the youth minister at a Baptist megachurch is found to be messing around with teenage boys, he doesn’t have to answer to a bishop. He answers to the church’s board of elders. What will they do? Most likely, the elders will want to avoid embarrassment and scandal, just as Catholic bishops do. So, they’ll ask him to resign quietly, and even give him a decent (though not glowing) letter of recommendation. He’ll move on to another job at another church, and the affair will be kept as hushed up as possible. The gym teacher that I had (Jr. Highschool) did exactly that. He was caught, confessed, and the school fired him. They did however, provide him with references, so that he was able to get another teaching job in another state-where he promptly started trolling for more victims! :mad: ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2010, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212/170 "2010-04-23T02:23:53Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > The gym teacher that I had (Jr. Highschool) did exactly that. He was caught, confessed, and the school fired him. They did however, provide him with references, so that he was able to get another teaching job in another state-where he promptly started trolling for more victims! :mad: Clearly, the public school system is evil & needs to be destroyed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-it-about-the-catholic-priesthood-that-attracts-so-many-pedophiles/533212.md?page=8)