VATICAN CITY (CNS): In confronting the clerical sex abuse crisis, the Catholic Church needs to work more closely with scientific experts to identify potential perpetrators and make sure they cannot harm the young, a soon-to-be-published Vatican report says.
The 220-page report, “Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: Scientific and Legal Perspectives”, represents the Vatican’s first comprehensive effort to examine recent research into the psychological causes and types of abuse, screening procedures, recidivism rates, effects on child victims and the possibility of successful therapy for abusers.
Although cautioning that each case of sexual abuse against minors is unique, it sketched general characteristics of priest-abusers and identified a wide range of possible “risk factors”, including sexual immaturity, narcissistic traits, alcohol and drug abuse, hormonal abnormalities and endocrine disorders.
While drawing on the experience of US bishops in confronting sexual abuse, the report made a case against the US policy of “zero tolerance” for clerical abusers. It suggested that the Church and society are better off when abusive priests are kept in the priesthood but away from children.
The report, to be published by the Pontifical Academy for Life, was based on a Vatican-sponsored symposium of scientific experts held last April.
The scientific experts, all of them non-Catholics working in the fields of psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy, appeared to agree unanimously that “zero tolerance” effectively prevents troubled priests from seeking help before they commit abuse, removes leverage with abusive priests to accept treatment, can leave priests emotionally devastated, and effectively passes responsibility for an abusive priest on to the larger society – where there is less monitoring and supervision of his behaviour.
Vice-director of the Vatican Press Office, Fr Ciro Benedettini, said on February 23 that the report focused primarily on scientific input and not Vatican positions, but he said the findings could influence future decisions at the Vatican.
