Spectrox Posted April 3, 2014 Posted April 3, 2014 Hi does anyone have any stats for the UK or elsewhere about the number of paedophiles as a percentage of catholic priests versus people in authority in secular professions? From the news it always seems that a disproportionate number of catholic priests are paedos but I wanted to know what the actual evidence was. I couldn't find any studies.
milesaway Posted April 4, 2014 Posted April 4, 2014 I'm afraid I don't. I do remember how one of the lawyers they interviewed in Deliver Us from Evil mentioned an alarming percentage of seminary students going on to molest kids once they graduated and went into the priesthood. Keep in mind that these guys were probably already seasoned molesters by the time they got there, and how they passed muster with the seminary is beyond me. Guess they'll take anything with a pulse. Then again, we're not dealing with the pinnacle of morality here. I think you might find this site helpful. http://www.bishop-accountability.org/
WarriorPoet Posted April 4, 2014 Posted April 4, 2014 Actually, some studies have shown that pedophiles may make up a smaller percentage of the priesthood than they do of the population as a whole. That is not the issue though. And if the information I have seen is correct, these studies were likely flawed. The fact is, the church actively attempted to obstruct justice in the case of priests abusing children. Maybe these studies are correct, if they are it still does not matter. The entire organization is guilty of crimes against humanity as long as they continue to defend, hide or attempt to justify the actions of abusers.
milesaway Posted April 4, 2014 Posted April 4, 2014 ^The church more than likely paid for those studies, so the results are gonna be slanted somehow. Confirmation bias? I wouldn't be surprised. Either way, it doesn't matter. The church has been aiding and abetting abusive clergy for ages, and worse yet is this shit is still actively going on. They can talk about how it's "omg sooooooooo crappy that Father So-and-so molested Billy and Suzie" until they're blue in the face, but talk is cheap when they continue to look the other way and move Father So-and-so to a different church. Then it'll be the same story all over again.
Vigile Posted April 4, 2014 Posted April 4, 2014 Actually, some studies have shown that pedophiles may make up a smaller percentage of the priesthood than they do of the population as a whole. That is not the issue though. And if the information I have seen is correct, these studies were likely flawed. The fact is, the church actively attempted to obstruct justice in the case of priests abusing children. Maybe these studies are correct, if they are it still does not matter. The entire organization is guilty of crimes against humanity as long as they continue to defend, hide or attempt to justify the actions of abusers. I'd like to see those studies and who paid for them. It stands to reason that sexual deviants are overrepresented in the priesthood for at least two reasons: First, if you're Catholic and you have unacceptable sexual impulses, you might be more likely to choose the priesthood as your only way of suppressing those desires; and second, sexual suppression leads to sexual repression and likely finds strange ways of escaping.
Adam5 Posted April 4, 2014 Posted April 4, 2014 It stands to reason that sexual deviants are overrepresented in the priesthood for at least two reasons: First, if you're Catholic and you have unacceptable sexual impulses, you might be more likely to choose the priesthood as your only way of suppressing those desires; and second, sexual suppression leads to sexual repression and likely finds strange ways of escaping. I think that its more likely sexual deviants are under-represented in the priesthood. Most of the abuse highlighted in the media seems to relate to historic abuse occuring up to the 1970s. This in no way excuses the appauling crimes. The media is critical of the catholic church and I think likely gives disproportionate coverage to child abuse in the catholic church, when you consider there are one billion catholics on the planet. I think they do this to expose hypocrisy and partly because the many people who are protestant or secular are anti catholic. However... I would certainly question why God isnt stopping any of the innocent suffering whether crimes are being committed by priests, teachers, scout leaders, or whoever. Surely an all-loving all-powerful God would intervene and stop every single case of abuse from occuring, otherwise the word love loses all meaning. This to me is proof that God does not exist or is not a prayer answering active being.
Vigile Posted April 4, 2014 Posted April 4, 2014 It stands to reason that sexual deviants are overrepresented in the priesthood for at least two reasons: First, if you're Catholic and you have unacceptable sexual impulses, you might be more likely to choose the priesthood as your only way of suppressing those desires; and second, sexual suppression leads to sexual repression and likely finds strange ways of escaping. I think that its more likely sexual deviants are under-represented in the priesthood. Most of the abuse highlighted in the media seems to relate to historic abuse occuring up to the 1970s. This in no way excuses the appauling crimes. The media is critical of the catholic church and I think likely gives disproportionate coverage to child abuse in the catholic church, when you consider there are one billion catholics on the planet. I think they do this to expose hypocrisy and partly because the many people who are protestant or secular are anti catholic. However... I would certainly question why God isnt stopping any of the innocent suffering whether crimes are being committed by priests, teachers, scout leaders, or whoever. Surely an all-loving all-powerful God would intervene and stop every single case of abuse from occuring, otherwise the word love loses all meaning. This to me is proof that God does not exist or is not a prayer answering active being. I've hypothesized that there are at least two factors which could potentially make them overrepresented. What factor(s) would you suggest would cause the numbers to be underrepresented? BTW, now that I think about it, I'd think the fact that priests are given such (at least historically) unsupervised access to kids, that too would attract more men with pedo tendencies than say, truck driving.
Vigile Posted April 4, 2014 Posted April 4, 2014 This is what I found in a quick search: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-tarico/the-protestant-clergy-sex_b_740853.html This problem is nothing new. The first book on clergy sex abuse in this country, Betrayal of Trust, was published in 1988. The perception that Catholic priests are overrepresented among offenders is correct. They do offend at a higher rate. From the study cited above: http://ffrf.org/component/k2/item/18499-unique-study-reveals-epidemic "Our study proves that these crimes are by no means confined to the Catholic Church. However, the meaningful statistic is that, although priests make up only about 10% of North American clergy, they are 40% of the accused. The Catholic Church, which always complains that the media are 'priest-bashing,' has absolutely no grounds for this criticism."
Spectrox Posted April 4, 2014 Author Posted April 4, 2014 Thanks for your responses guys. Some good info there.
Guest Posted April 4, 2014 Posted April 4, 2014 Hi does anyone have any stats for the UK or elsewhere about the number of paedophiles as a percentage of catholic priests versus people in authority in secular professions? From the news it always seems that a disproportionate number of catholic priests are paedos but I wanted to know what the actual evidence was. I couldn't find any studies. I remember a site about 5 years ago that listed all the religious people who were convicted of child molestation, but I can not for the life of me remember the url. I did find this site in a quick search: http://www.bishop-accountability.org/priestdb/PriestDBbylastName-A.html
FreeThinkerNZ Posted April 4, 2014 Posted April 4, 2014 I lean towards the RC-priests-are-over-represented side of this issue, but I also want to add that (anecdotally) most child sexual abuse seems to be committed by family members such as fathers, stepfathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers, cousins (while also acknowledging that in a minority of cases it is a female offender), and that the adults most likely to deny and try to cover it up it are mothers, grandmothers etc. Stranger danger is are nothing like as prevalent as the danger many children live with in their own homes. And I think the sexual repression inherent in religion is an indirect contributing factor. Not to take anything away from the pervasive, systematic institutionalised abuse committed by the RC church and other churches/cults.
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