From the John Jay College of Criminal Justice:
John Jay College Reports No Single Cause, Predictor of Clergy Abuse
May 18, 2011, Washington, DC —A landmark study by researchers at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York, which examined the causes and context of the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the U.S. Catholic Church, concluded that there was no single cause or predictor of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. The report added that that situational factors and opportunity to abuse played a significant role in the onset and continuation of abusive acts.
"The bulk of cases occurred decades ago," said Karen Terry, PhD., John Jay's principal investigator for the report. "The increased frequency of abuse in the 1960s and 1970s was consistent with the patterns of increased deviance of society during that time." She also stated that "social influences intersected with vulnerabilities of individual priests whose preparation for a life of celibacy was inadequate at that time." Terry also said that neither celibacy nor homosexuality were causes of the abuse, and that priest candidates who would later abuse could not be distinguished by psychological test data, developmental and sexual history data, intelligence data, or experience in priesthood. The development of human formation components of seminary preparation for priesthood is associated with the continued low levels of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the United States, she said.
The study also found that the initial, mid-1980s response of bishops to allegations of abuse was to concentrate on getting help for the priest-abusers. Despite the development of a comprehensive plan for response to victims and the harms of sexual abuse by the mid-1990s, diocesan implementation was not consistent or thorough at that time. Yet, the decrease in incidence of sexual abuse cases by clergy was more rapid than the overall societal patterns.
The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010 report by a John Jay College research team was made public May 18 in Washington. Terry presented the report to Diane Knight, CMSW, Chair of the National Review Board, a group of lay Catholics who oversaw the project and to Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Washington, who chairs the U.S. Bishops' Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People.
The report can be found here.
This Blog entry is fairly representative of the backlash:
Talkin’ bout a revolution
When I hear revolution I’m reminded of songs from the Beatles or Tracy Chapman. I think of going against the establishment. There have been great revolutions in this country: the women’s movement, the civil right’s movement and even the Stonewall revolution, which marks the gay movement for equality.
That’s why it’s hard for me to digest the five-year study commissioned by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops, which concluded that the church’s sexual abuse crisis had nothing to do with either the all-male celibate priesthood or homosexuality.
Oh no, the reason why there was a surge in the number of sexual abuse cases by priests against minors was because “priests were poorly prepared and monitored amid the social and sexual turmoil of the 1960s and ’70s.” More: http://spinellimd.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/talkin-bout-a-revolution/
I must say that, during 12 years of Catholic school education and perhaps six or eight years as an alter boy, I never encountered any sexual abuse by any of the many priests I encountered in the church and in the classrooms. But I did witness the departure of many of the youngest and best priests who taught me in high school --- and even the priest who married my wife and me --- probably in response to the "call of the wild," i.e., the sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies. So it's not so difficult for me to give some credence to the John Jay study's conclusion.
Anyway, here's what I wrote about "the abuse excuse" a few years ago in my column, Attorney at Large:
James Castagnera: The Abuse Excuse ... One Size Fits All ?
SOURCE: Lehighton Times-News (10-14-06)
[Mr. Castagnera, a Philadelphia journalist and attorney, is the author of the weekly newspaper column Attorney at Large.]
Perhaps it’s Clarence Darrow’s fault. The famous trial attorney, best known for the Scopes Monkey Trial immortalized in “Inherit the Wind,” also represented the thrill killers Leopold and Loeb. That 1924 trial inspired at least four feature films: Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rope” (1948), “Compulsion” with Orson Wells in the Darrow role (1959), the kinky “Swoon” (1992), and most recently “Murder by Numbers” (2002). Called the crime of the century at the time of the trial, the murder of teenaged Bobby Franks by two wealthy college boys in Chicago has fascinated us down the decades.
Realizing that no jury would find his two privileged and brilliant clients not guilty by reason on insanity, Darrow entered a “guilty” plea on the capital crimes of kidnapping and murder. He then mounted a three-month-long hearing before the trial judge, known to be a softy, for mitigation of the sentence. A dizzying succession of shrinks and other experts painted a picture of two disturbed young men who had been ignored by their parents and placed at the tender mercies of nannies who engaged them in sex games. Summing up this weird array of witnesses, Darrow made one of his most famous assertions:
“Why did they kill little Bobby Franks? Not for money, not for spite, not for hate. They killed him as they might kill a spider or a fly, for the experience. They killed him because they were made that way. Because somewhere in the infinite processes that go to the making up of the boy or the man something slipped, and those unfortunate lads sit here hated, despised, outcasts, with the community shouting for their blood.”
As a defense attorney, Darrow was a genius. His argument is one-size-fits-all.
“Why did President Bill Clinton engage in sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky? He did it as he might open his fly, for the experience.”
“Why did New Jersey Governor Jim McGrevey appoint his lover to a key homeland security post? Because he was made that way.”
Now former-Congressman Mark Foley has joined the queue for his turn. His attorney last week released a claim that Foley, between ages 13 and 15, was abused by a clergyman. How convenient for Mr. Foley that he was raised Roman Catholic. By now the media have persuaded most of America that every Catholic priest for the past 50 years was a sex fiend.
In 1994 Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, best known for the book and film “Reversal of Fortune,” published The Abuse Excuse… and Other Cop-Outs, Sob Stories and Evasions of Responsibility. Since its publication the book has spawned no major motion picture. But perhaps it should. Or perhaps a new TV series awaits discovery in its pages. Says Dershowitz, “From the Menendez brothers to Lorena Bobbitt, more and more Americans accused of violent crimes are admitting to the charges -- but arguing that they shouldn't be held legally responsible. The reason: They're victims -- of an abusive parent, a violent spouse, a traumatic experience, society at large, or anything else -- who struck back at a real or perceived oppressor. And they couldn't help themselves.”
I wonder what Darrow, who died in 1938, would make of this state of affairs? He doubted the existence of free will. However, he didn’t attempt to obtain an acquittal for Nathan Leopold and Dicky Loeb. He only argued, successfully, to save them from the hangman’s noose. His clients received life sentences. I hope he wouldn’t endorse the abuse excuse as a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.
Rather, I hope he would recognize that the whole of our criminal law is based upon the belief that all but the truly insane can see the difference between right and wrong and have sufficient self control to choose the former over the latter.
Replace that principle with a one-size-fits-all alibi and we might just as well tear down our courthouses and replace them with clinics. Hopefully, even you lawyer-haters out there don’t endorse that.
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