Child sex abuse and the Catholic clergy

A subject rarely discussed is the extent of homosexuality among Catholic priests.

The Catholic Church expressly forbids homosexual acts, disdains the gay lifestyle, and is viewed with a degree of hostility by the gay lobby. This might provide reason for gay men to eschew the priesthood, especially in more recent times. On the other hand, the Catholic Church has tended to be tolerant of gay priests who are not active in engaging in homosexual acts, and its ban on married priests does provide a very convenient closet for gay men to unsuspiciously hide in. It is probably drawing too long a bow to link homosexuality amongst Catholic clergy with levels of child sexual abuse within the Church. There seems, however, be a link between homosexuality within the priesthood, along with the tendency for most Catholic institutions to be same-sex, and the majority of the child victims of Catholic priests and religious being boys.

There are limited data on the extent of homosexuality amongst the Catholic priesthood. Wikipedia notes that studies find it difficult to quantify specific percentages of Roman Catholic priests who identify as gay priests. The John Jay Report ("The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States") did report that "homosexual men entered the seminaries in noticeable numbers from the late 1970s through the 1980s", and that "available figures for homosexual priests in the United States range from 15 to 58 per cent". It also cites Elizabeth Stuart, a former convener of the Catholic Caucus of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, as claiming that "it has been estimated that at least 33 percent of all priests in the RC Church in the United States are homosexual".

Persistent rumours also suggest a gay lobby in the Vatican and investigative journalists have allegedly caught high ranking people in the Vatican engaging in gay behaviour. The Catholic Church in Scotland was engulfed in crisis following the resignation of Cardinal Keith O'Brien amid allegations of "inappropriate behavior" with fellow priests stretching back 30 years. (This scandal was made worse by his public record of stridently defending Catholic prohibition of homosexual behavior.)

The John Jay report found that 81 per cent of the victims of Catholic clergy in the US were male. It also found that "individuals who molest children may be heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual with regard to victim selection. Child sexual abusers who prefer female victims were found to be more likely to be diagnosed as paedophiles than those who prefer male children, while child sexual abusers who prefer male victims tend to target boys who are slightly older".

While accurate figures are hard to come by for other countries, including Australia, the John Jay report put rates of alleged child sex abuse across regions of the Catholic Church in the US at between 3 and 6 per cent of priests. There seems to be a broad notion that such figures may also be typical for other developed countries.

The highest figures I have heard about relate to the Irish Christian Brothers. In Ireland in the early 1960s the Christian Brothers had enjoyed a peak membership of some 1,300 Brothers. An audit subsequently found allegations of abuse against a staggering 325 (or 25 per cent) of Brothers relating to 870 incidences of abuse over several decades. The very high incidence of alleged abusing by this Order may reflect that up until the 1960s it routinely sought to recruit noviciates as young as 14 years of age. Recruits were subsequently separately educated at a special boarding school so that they were set on a path of celibacy virtually from the age of puberty. The Christian Brothers' membership in Ireland now stands at some 267 Brothers, with an average age of 74 years. It is a dying order and management of its schools and institutions is now substantially in the hands of Catholic laity.

There are two sad aspects to the story of child sex abuse within the Catholic Church (and other churches to a lesser degree). The first obviously relates to the direct impact on innocent child victims, whose lives may have been scarred by abuse. The second relates to collateral damage affecting those priests and religious who have always acted properly and never abused children (the vast majority). Their reputations have been smeared by association. The churches continue to do good work in the areas of education, health, social work etc. It is a pity that the child abuse issue was allowed to run largely unchecked for so long, overshadowing good work being done in other areas.

While I have empathy for innocent rank and file priests and religious, I believe that Church hierarchies have a lot to answer for, and are themselves totally undeserving of any sympathy.