Reflections on Abusive Priests’ Study

In Diversity Consciousness, I discuss personal barriers, those individual factors that impede our success, and social barriers, those factors that are external to an individual. In an individualistic culture like the U.S., we tend to see individuals as responsible for their own actions. Why are poor people poor? Why do criminals commit crime? Why do children act out in school? Most research shows that people in the U.S. when asked these questions, find fault with the individual and the choices they make.
Interestingly, a recent report on sexual abuse released by John Jay College of Criminal Justice shifts the blame far away from the individual and puts it squarely on society. Researchers were hired by the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops to look into the causes of the sex crisis by priests. What they found was that 1) priests are no more likely to abuse children than anyone else in society and 2) priest offenders were not properly trained to deal with the changing social norms and specifically, the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Researchers went on to say they could find no one cause of the abuse.
The study’s scientific basis leaves much to be desired. While the researchers made the case for the study’s objectivity, many were critical of the fact that much of the study was paid for by the bishops. Moreover, there is a huge difference between a cause and effect relationship and a correlation. To say that the 60s caused the rise in sexual abuse is suspect at best.
Those in power have privileges. One of those privileges is the ability to put distance between themselves and deviant behavior. In this case, those in power did not use lawyers or law enforcement officials to shift attention away from individuals who abused their role as clergy. Rather, they hired academicians to deflect the blame. Language such as, the priests in question ‘had some vulnerabilities” to commit sexual abuse opens the door for an avalanche of easy excuses. Each of us, I believe, could argue we have certain vulnerabilities that can be exacerbated by certain social forces. How we react to those vulnerabilities is what makes us who we are. Whether this report is about making excuses can be debated. What can’t be debated is that those in power have the resources to focus the blame on anyone but themselves.