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From Zenit [ zenit.org] Vatican Study on Sex Abuse; "The Passion's" Casting Director
Sensitive Topics Addressed in a 2003 Conference
By Delia Gallagher
ROME, MARCH 4, 2004 (Zenit.org).- A Vatican study on sex abuse that was released just a few days before the reports of the U.S. bishops' conference, merits a closer look.
Among the expert opinions, it contains two presentations by Vatican officials, and a number of questions raised by participants that indicate the Holy See's thinking on this issue.
The 220-page Vatican study, entitled "Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: Scientific and Legal Perspectives," is not an official report, but rather the proceedings of a three-day conference held last April at which eight non-Catholic psychiatric experts spoke on the topic of sexual abuse.
Members of nearly all the Vatican dicasteries attended the conference. The study includes excerpts of questions which those members asked the panel of experts.
The study shows that there is a serious attempt under way to understand and address this complex problem on both sides of the Atlantic.
The opening talk of the April conference, republished in the study, was given by Monsignor Charles Scicluna of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is responsible for adjudicating cases of sexual abuse.
"The Church is first of all committed to a humble acknowledgment of the problem," Monsignor Scicluna said. then it goes on to say, The Vatican is also grappling with the question of how best to screen candidates for the priesthood. Here are some of the questions Vatican officials asked the experts:
-- How can one avoid a situation in which men with pedophile tendencies are able to hide behind a celibate life? Answer: Screening can help, but there is no 100% guarantee.
-- "There is currently a debate in the Church," said one Vatican participant, "on whether or not such direct questions [on psychosexual history of candidate] seen as too invasive, can be used with candidates for the priesthood." What is your opinion? Answer: Experts were divided but tended toward supporting such procedures.
-- What qualifications should those asking prospective seminarians questions about their psychosexual history have? Answer: They should have completed an academic course on sexuality; have interviewing skills; be comfortable with their own sexuality.
-- Is a person's high interest in working with teen-age youth a potential risk factor for sexual abuse? Answer: It depends on his motivations for wanting to work with youth.
-- Is phallometric testing (penile response to visual stimulation) an accurate test for risk factors and would it be recommended for use in screening? Answer: It is the only reliable scientific test for measuring sexual preference patterns and can be the best predictor of recidivism, but it can be considered unethical to show images of naked children and would be a "public relations nightmare" for the Church, according to one expert.
Archbishop Csaba Ternyak, secretary of the Congregation for Clergy, asked the experts: "[T]o what degree one can talk about the rehabilitation of the offender, what are the most effective methods of treatment, and on what grounds we can say that a person who has never offended is at risk to sexually molest someone?"
The archbishop also spoke on the damaging effects of the crisis for the priest-bishop relationship and the "sense of gloom" felt by priests in good standing who "perceive their bishops to have turned against them" and "have become disillusioned about the effectiveness of the laws of the Church to defend their dignity and their inalienable rights."
"There have been more than a few suicides among accused priests," Archbishop Ternyak told the conference. I am scandalized! How can one even think that the above is God's will. Have these people lost their mind? I would love to hear how someone can rationalize these kinds of recommendations.
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It seems to me that these recommendations are a load of nonsense.
Candidates should be "comfortable with their own sexuality" ????? What is "their own" sexuality? What if their sexuality is disordered? In that case, why should they be comfortable with it?
I think this is a bunch of smoke made in order to avoid the fact that homosexuality is 1) essentially a disorder, and 2) the root of the current "problem".
Homosexual attraction, in and of itself, is not a sin, any more than a propensity for alcoholism is a sin. But homosexal attraction IS a disorder, and that is why the Church ALWAYS had rules against ordaining men who are afflicted with it. It INCLINES them to sin, especially when they are in pastoral situations which offer them the occasion.
Here's my 2-cents worth of "recommendations" for dealing with this terribly complex problem:
1) Preach chastity to homosexuals, in love, but without compromising on the fact that homosexual acts are WRONG and that one should NOT be "comfortable" with such acts.
2) Don't ordain men who are afflicted with this temptation.
3) Restore traditional clarity to the Church's doctrinal and moral teching--especially on the local level.
3) Restore the Roman liturgy, and get rid of all the new lay "ministers". A celibate priesthood only makes sense if the priest has matrimonial exclusivity to enter the holy of holies and touch the LORD God.
All this nonsense about showing them pictures and seeing what turns them on!!! What a load of crap!
MATER CASTISSIMA ORA PRO NOBIS
LatinTrad
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Dear Friends,
And I would like to add my own recommendation here.
Restore the married priesthood to the Latin Church.
Alex
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Do I understand you correctly, Alex, that you are linking celibacy to sexual abuse?
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CIX! Latin Trad, I agree with your points except for: 2) Don't ordain men who are afflicted with this temptation. I believe this would be a mistake. The beauty of true Catholic & Orthodox teaching on sexuality is that it looks beyond these labels - a chaste homosexual man is equally capable of holiness (or unholiness as the case may be) as a chaste heterosexual man. I'm going to quote from David Morrison, from Courage: Here are my top four reasons why I believe a ban on on ordaining men who live with a degree of same sex attraction from the priesthood would be a foolish and destructive policy. These are in no order of importance. They are all important. First, such a policy would go against the spirit, if not the actual letter, of the Church's current teaching on same sex attraction (homosexuality) which I find to be, frankly, head and shoulders above what anybody else has had to say on the subject. Alone among Christendom, or at least alone among the Christendom that I know, the Catholic Church looks at me with the eyes of Christ and calls me into deeper discipleship, to walk the road to heaven with Him and all my other brother and sisters by adoption. The Catholic Church does not, as some other Christian churches do, pretend she can play God and judge that I am worthy only of hell on the basis of what tempts me. Neither does she, as other Christians do (and sometimes churches) deem to decide in advance for me that I deserve on the soft and easy parts of the Gospel message and that I should not hear Christ tell me to sell everything I have and follow Him. She looks at me with Christ's eyes and loves me and invites me to become a Saint. So, if my living with same sex attraction is not enough to keep me from heaven, should it be enough to keep me from the priesthood if I believed the Holy Spirit called me in that direction? Once we sought to discern my vocation maybe it would become clear that I am not called to be a priest. Fine. But don't close the conversation without even considering what the call might be. Second, such as ban would be fundamentally impossible to administer. How little SSA will it take to keep a man from the priesthood? Will the crush he had as an eighth grader on an eleventh grader who seemed to have everything he wanted be enough to keep him out? How about fantasies as an early teenager. And do we presume that all candidates have some degree of SSA, as I have been told is the current procedure now? If so, under this policy, how do we ask candidates to prove they are not, essentially to prove a negative? Third, such a ban will merely force SSA further underground among priests and seminarians, make it further ill considered and stigmatized and virtually guarantee that it will linger to malform yet further seminarians and priests. The ability to be honest, with oneself, with ones spiritual director, with ones confessor, appears to me to be instrumental in all Christian Formation, not just that of seminarians and priests. I cannot understand how anyone could consider having to keep ones sexual temptations a secret from anyone else could be conducive to helping you learn to confront them and live chastely. Fourth, such a policy would be essentially a red herring, distracting us from the real problem, which are priests and bishops who, for whatever reason, are malformed and willing to live and administer the Church essentially faithlessly. If we are honest we have to admit The Situation only casts a spotlight on things which we have known to be wrong for a long time. While there is no guarantee that pastors who are faithful to the Gospel would necessarily have 1) confronted the situation when it was still small and 2) not participated in it themselves I cannot help but think they would have been less willing to have betrayed Christ as apparently readily as they did. O.K. Objections. Aren't there already bishops who have such a ban in place even, for example, in your own diocese of Arlington, VA? Yes, that's true. But guess what, they still have priests living with a degree of same sex attraction, priests who, for obvious reasons, cannot be honest about that with people who might be able to help them carry that particular Cross. Which is better, to be able to honest and forthright, when one has to be, about what tempts you or to have to feel like you need to hide it all the time? In my experience isolation and secrets are not aids to chaste living.Excluding chaste homosexuals from the priesthood is needlessly cruel and a waste of certain talents that seem to be found in great abundance in those who happen to have this "affliction". These talents include an increased sensitivity to the subtleties of human relationships, a talent for empathy, as well as gifts in music, art, drama, imagination and anything aesthetic. I can't imagine the amount of lace in later Roman vestments coming from anywhere else, for example. The Orthodox and Easterns seem to be far more sensible on this matter - if one is celibate, there isn't a problem. Saint (for so I believe him to be) Seraphim (Rose) of Platina was one such individual, and look how much good he did. How much poorer we would be if his inclinations prior to a life of celibacy were an impediment to his ordination. How much poorer would we be if Gerard Manley Hopkins were not ordained? The great danger is not from priests who might live with some degree of same sex attraction but who nonetheless remain faithful to Christ and to their ordinations. The danger is in priests who live with some degree of Same Sex Attraction and simply disregard or eschew their promises and commitments in order to indulge their lusts - and who are not called on the carpet for it. 3) Restore the Roman liturgy, and get rid of all the new lay "ministers". [b] A celibate priesthood only makes sense if the priest has matrimonial exclusivity to enter the holy of holies and touch the LORD God.
[/b] The Tridentine rite's not coming back - I'd be glad to see the 1965 missal gain wider use. While far outnumbered in problems by the Novus Disordo, the Tridentine rite had many flaws of its own which desperately needed fixing. I assume by that when you refer to lay "ministers" you speak of the "Eucharistic Ministers"? If so, I'm in full agreement. in Domino, Edward
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Originally posted by LatinTrad:
Candidates should be "comfortable with their own sexuality" ????? What is "their own" sexuality? What if their sexuality is disordered? In that case, why should they be comfortable with it? I suspect being comfortable with it simply means facing it, admitting it, and realising that one's sexuality is not the defining factor of one's being and identity. If one is disordered in this way, then recognising and accepting it is nothing more than accepting the particular cross which God gives one to bear. The toxicity of living a life where you are ashamed of some particular part of yourself (e.g. �the closet�) is one of the only things about which gay activists and I generally agree. But coming to terms with the fact that one lives with a degree of same sex attraction, and letting a few close, faithful, Catholic friends know about it, does not mean defining yourself by those attractions or coming to the conclusion that acting on them sexually would be a good thing to do.
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Originally posted by LatinTrad:
..homosexuality is the root of the current "problem". Guys, you do realise that homosexuality and pedophilia are to different things?? A homosexual may or may not also be a pedophile, in the same way a heterosexual may or may not be a pedophile. Christian
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Dear Christian,
A very good point - how astute of you to say so.
The issue of sexual abuse in the Latin Church is being variously interpreted.
Conservatives tend to say that homosexuality is the root cause. Liberals say that it is pedophilia.
One does not have to be conservative or liberal to accept pedophilia as a condition separate from homosexuality.
Alex
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Dear djs,
I'm not linking celibacy to sexual abuse.
Many lay Catholics I've spoken to and whose comments I've read are, however.
I've yet to hear a lay reaction to clergy sex abuse that did not, in some way, contain a reference to the issue of married Latin priests.
Do the Eastern Churches with their married clergy have a problem with abusive clergy that compares in any way with what the Latin Church has?
No, they do not.
And it ISN'T simply about sexual outlets for priests living in an overly sexualized society.
It is about personal and emotional support for their work that comes from a presbytera and a family.
One aspect of the above mentioned statements seem to suggest that the Latin Church is ready to accept the fact of celibate priests with homosexual tendencies.
In fact, the "cover-up" of abusive clergy by RC bishops over the years SEEM to suggest that some may have viewed the fact of some abusive clergy as the "price" to pay for imposed celibacy.
Yet, when a Latin priest is honest with himself and chooses to marry - then, well, the RC bishops are very quick to tell him "Listen, friend, we have rules in the church, you know . . ."
And what will the Latin Church do with its abusive clergy? It will send them to monasteries to keep them out of the range of children and others they might harm.
In fact, it has long been the practice of the Orthodox Church to allow ONLY married clergy in her parishes for all sorts of excellent reasons.
If we had a poll among North American RC's right now about whether or not to allow married priests in the Church, what do you think that poll will bear out?
The single most effective way of not only combatting abusive priests, but also of restoring credibility to and respect for the clergy would be to allow married Latin priests.
There are those who will say that this is "not the Latin tradition."
And usually, these are married and traditional Catholic laity who do say this . . .
But it is time to return to the wisdom of previous centuries in this respect to being rooting out abusive clergy using this and other means - and also, as I've heard bishops say on EWTN, attack the problem of the "homosexualization" of the seminaries.
Alex
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Originally posted by Orthodox Catholic:
One does not have to be conservative or liberal to accept pedophilia as a condition separate from homosexuality. Amen!!! On this point, Alex and I are in complete agreement! Neil
"One day all our ethnic traits ... will have disappeared. Time itself is seeing to this. And so we can not think of our communities as ethnic parishes, ... unless we wish to assure the death of our community."
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Dear Neil, Aye, 'tis a fine day as it turns out . . .  And, coming from you, such an agreement is nothing to sneeze at! I do fly off the handle when the Irish and Romanian in me commingle in a kind of psychological Monophysism . . . (Sorry, but I did go on with Linus on this matter on another thread, as you doubtless know . . .) Alex
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In the many cases of child molestation within the Catholic Church their certainly appears to be a direct correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia. Why this desire by so many to rush to the defense of homosexuality. This entire issue keeps turning into one vast gray area where God's word just becomes more and more subjective.
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Originally posted by Orthodox Catholic:
Do the Eastern Churches with their married clergy have a problem with abusive clergy that compares in any way with what the Latin Church has?
No, they do not.
And it ISN'T simply about sexual outlets for priests living in an overly sexualized society.
It is about personal and emotional support for their work that comes from a presbytera and a family. Dear Alex, What you're saying may very well be true! In which case, wouldn't a better solution be, not to insist on a married clergy in the Latin Church, but for the church to try to provide more of that personal and emotional support to its celibate priests? And you are also assuming that every priest's marriage will be a good one and provide him with that type of support. Certainly that's to be hoped for in every marriage, but what if it's not? What happens when your priest and his wife have a major argument and start throwing things at each other in the parking lot, 5 minutes before the Liturgy is supposed to start? Whose side are you going to take? (and how hard can you throw?  )
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Originally posted by Lawrence:
In the many cases of child molestation within the Catholic Church their certainly appears to be a direct correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia. Why this desire by so many to rush to the defense of homosexuality. In my case, it's a desire to maintain certain critical distinctions between different things which are more often unrelated than not. I've worked with people from all over the religious and sexual spectrum, and there is often a muddled confusion with regards to categories of deviant sexuality on the part of a lot of religious people, stemming often not from an inability to understand, but a wilful and deliberate unwillingness to understand. It's entirely possible for this conservative to believe the root of the crisis is paedophilia, and not homosexuality. We've had homosexuals in the clergy from the earliest days, and we haven't had this crisis till quite recently, so obviously the problem doesn't lie there.
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Father in Christ Alex,
-Allowing married men to seek ordination would not de facto prohibit perverts or other single men for that matter.
-They could stop ordaining perverts now if they wanted to. Seminaries where they don't accept perverts (FSSP, LC's, etc.) are FILLED TO THE BRIM with young, normal men eager to serve the Church as celibate priests. No problems with abuse there either. Normal men are driven away by diocesan admissions policies which actively discourage them. I KNOW THIS, not from hearsay.
-How many abusers were normal men driven to distraction by the lack of emotional support their celibate life offered them?? This is nonsense. They were perverts before they sought the priesthood, 99.9% of the time.
-There is A LOT more I could write now. However, I am too upset and I am at work.
Suffice it to say that Alex's post, which impugns the honor, the chastity, and the sacrifice made by all who choose to serve the Church as celibate priests, is wrong-headed, and offers an illusory solution to the abuse problem.
The only solution to the abuse problem is not to ordain men that struggle with abnormal sexual drives. The fact that such men have been encouraged to enter the seminaries, to the exclusion of their healthy counterparts, is a known fact. The abuse crisis has nothing to do with mandatory celibacy. It is the result of a calculated effort to overthrow the Church's teaching and traditions. The overthrowers? American chancery offices.
By the way, Alex, if you look at overall police statistics, most pedophiles are married men.
The crisis in the Church is NOT a crisis of pedophilia. The majority of abuse cases involve post-pubescent young men. This is clearly a homosexual crisis.
The celibate priesthood is the wrong tree to chop down right now. FIRST, chop down the trees of liberal chancery officials who have UNDERMINED the celibate priesthood.
LatinTrad
PS sorry for the rant
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