“Say it ain’t so, Joe,” the infamous yet
apocryphal question asked of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson about
the Chicago White Sox throwing the 1919 World Series, could
have been asked about clergy sex abuse.
The shameful answer is that abuse of minors by
some priests and deacons did happen in the last 52 years and
viciously contradicted the Good News of Jesus Christ.
That fact is clear from the John Jay College of
Criminal Justice’s research study on the “nature and scope”
of the problem, released February 27. This study quashes any
lingering hope that abuse of minors by priests was a fiction
created by headline-hungry, anti-Church media.
By the Numbers
Ninety-seven percent of dioceses and 60 percent
of men’s religious communities, representing 80 percent of
religious priests, completed the surveys for the John Jay
The study documented 10,667 victims who were sexually
abused by Catholic clergy. (Since many victims do not come
forward until years later, that figure is probably much higher.)
Most were between the ages of 11 and 17.
At least 4,392 diocesan and religious order priests
and deacons were accused of engaging in sexual abuse of a
minor between 1950 and 2002.
Abusers represent four percent of all priests
involved in active ministry during that time. Priest-abusers
in religious orders were only 2.7 percent of priests in their
By 2003, clergy sex abuse had cost dioceses and
religious orders more than $572 million, which paid for victim
compensation, victim treatment, abuser treatment and attorneys’
The 'How' and 'Why' Report
That same day, the National Review Board
released a “causes and context” report based on the John Jay
numbers and on its own interviews with 85 individuals: victims,
bishops, priests, psychologists, district attorneys and others.
The National Review Board’s report attempts to
explain how this crisis happened: Why were individuals with
a predisposition to prey sexually upon minors allowed to become
priests? Why did they remain priests after bishops received
evidence of such abuse?
The Board called the actions of abuser priests
and “the inaction of those bishops who failed to protect their
people from predators” both “grievously sinful.”
The Board refused to hide behind the fact that
most sexual abuse occurs in families. “[W]hen sexual abuse
of minors occurs in the Church it is particularly abhorrent.”
The Board found “two overarching contributing
factors”: Dioceses and orders did not screen candidates for
the priesthood properly, and seminaries did not form candidates
for the priesthood adequately and prepare them for the sexual
revolution of the ’60s.
The large numbers of vocations in the ’50s and
early ’60s may have overwhelmed the system, and the paucity
of vocations later led to pressure to ordain even marginal
men, the Board suggested.
Since four fifths of the victims were male, the
Board addressed the issue of homosexual priests. The Board
concluded that this crisis was caused neither by homosexuality
(the conservatives’ favored explanation) nor by priestly celibacy
(the liberals’ most common explanation).
The strongest words in the Board’s report were
saved for bishops. Many bishops, the Board found, treated
victims as adversaries, not as injured parishioners in need
The Board suggested that bishops relied too much
on psychologists, who had a vested interest in promoting the
remedial benefits of therapy, and on lawyers, who sometimes
gave “myopic legal advice.”
What troubled the Board most was the lack of bishops’
outrage and the lack of accountability by them. “The exercise
of authority without accountability is not servant-leadership;
it is tyranny,” the Board commented.
It also recommended that bishops make more use
of Vatican II institutions like presbyteral councils and provide
fraternal correction for one another. And they advised more
lay input in the selection of bishops.
Moving Toward a Transparent Church
Both reports are monumental efforts. They
are brave and don’t spare anyone’s feelings. The analysis
is complex, the recommendations many and far-reaching. Just
as the National Review Board refused the simple analysis,
it eschewed the quick fix.
Last June, an article in St. Anthony Messenger’s
special issue, “Crisis in the Church: Our Search for Healing,”
posed the question of whether
the National Review Board was “for show or for real.”
These painfully honest reports prove the Board is rubber-stamping
nothing. Because the U.S. bishops appointed this board and
are allowing it to do its work, they show they are no longer
carrying a bucket of whitewash.
At the press conference announcing these reports,
Bishop Wilton Gregory, the president of the U.S. bishops,
said, “The terrible history recorded here today is history.”
True, but history can repeat itself if the recommendations
in the National Review Board’s report are not taken to heart.B.B.
Both reports are available in full at www.usccb.org/nrb/index.htm.
St. Anthony Messenger’s special issue is available