Running head: CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN THE CATHOLIC

CHURCH 1

Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church

Jocelyn Lopez

Arizona State University

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Abstract

In this essay, a research plan is created to answer ways to prevent child sexual abuse, in the

Catholic Church, to stop. By understanding the several factors that influence predatory-priests

and analyzing the different perspectives, such as psychosocial, socio-cultural, situational and

generativity, this issue will be discussed more and possible solutions will be discovered.

Keywords: child sexual abuse, Catholic Church, perspectives, prevention

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Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church

Children are the key to the future, they should be protected, nurtured and led by their

parents and other influential people. In the Catholic Church, the priests are interpreted as the

leaders and the guide to the religious world. The priests are the shepherd and the children are the

sheep. It is common that priests are seen to be protectors of the children, since the Catholic

Church praises they are God’s children. Children are known to be friendly, and because of their

naive mindset, they easily trust people. At times people take advantage of their vulnerability. In

recent conversations of the Vatican’s response to child sexual abuse taken place in the Catholic

Church, a controversial issue has been trying to understand priests’ motives to sexually abuse

children. Dissecting and understanding their psychological complex can prevent children from

being put at risk.

Some argue that there are individual factors within the abuser, such as psychosocial and

socio-cultural influences. From this perspective, these factors affect the priests emotionally and

mentally, that leads to their immature personal development which can then motivate them to

prey on innocent children. On the contrary, there are others who argue that these priests are

motivated by their urge to commit a crime solely based on specific circumstances such as

opportunity and access, this is known as the situational perspective. Still others believe that there

is a different side, the generativity perspective, of whether the abusive priests are just simply not

ethical human beings because they are underdeveloped. I maintain that all these factors work

together in a complex way that develops the minds of abusive priests. Exposing these malicious

priests is important for preventing future children of the Church from becoming victims.

The distinct perspective adds several terms that relate to their explanations to a priests’

abusive development. For one, the seminary is the school and training that prepares those for
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ordination as clergy, ministers or priests. Celibacy is a forced rule in the Catholic Church for

clergy, gives them restraint from marriage and sexual relations. Child sexual abuse is the act of

an adult engaging in sexual activity to a child, which in law is not able to give consent. Child

sexual abuse accusations against priests from the Catholic Church began in the 1980’s, adults

and young adults spoke out of their experiences with their abuser, which happened in the

previous years. Alleged cases claim the abuse go back all the way from the 1950’s. The rise of

investigations, allegations and trials against priests spurted throughout 1980’s until the early

2000’s. The patterns in victimization changed over time because of the public attention it got by

media coverage. Thousands of priests around the world were exposed and trialed. While these

high-profile crimes gained attention, it is still not understood how these occurrences happened in

the first place and why it was under discussed within the Catholic Church.

Psychosocial and socio-cultural influences connect in a way that restraints priests from

fully developing. From the psychosocial perspective, priests come from a seminary where they

“sacrifice, under demand of clerical system, psychosexual development” (2015, Anderson, p.

784). This point of conformity forces a constraint from emotional affirmation. They feel

powerful over a young child who doesn’t understand their own sexual affirmation due to their

youthful mind. This connects to sociocultural influences as well. Seminary training can interfere

with priests’ interaction with the social world. The priests’ vulnerability increases mainly

because they are “revolved in a monitored life, in a community that prohibited exploring

sexuality, no heterosexual or homosexual friendship were allowed” (Anderson, 2015, p. 786).

This separates them from normative relationships with others, and most importantly with

themselves. This forces “all their identity to be directed to ministerial practice” (Anderson, 2015,

p. 786). Instead of being able to understand who they are and how they’ll act in society, priests
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are not able to understand their true self. They are not able to venture into other normal

relationships where adulthood, responsibility and morality really cultivate in.

The situational perspective focuses on opportunity and access. In a study that

Terry and Freilich mention in their article (2012) it was found that “in cases of child sexual

abuse, the location of abuse is usually an environment close to the child, be it his or her home,

the home of the offender, or they share” (p. 440). It is common for families to trust priests

because of the intellectual and social profile priests have. Priests take advantage of the close

relationship they may have with a family and is able to engage to have the child alone with him.

They take this opportunity to do the crime in privacy. There are other situations when a priest has

access to a child, it was found that “20% of extrafamilial offenders reported having accessed

children via an organized activity, with some 8% having joined a child or youth organization for

the primary purpose of perpetrating a sexual offense” (2012, Terry & Freilich., pp. 442). Their

interest in joining an organization is for having easy access to their victim, with the convenience

of having privacy. Their sexual attraction to children puts these children, who are active in

religious activity, at risk.

In the generativity perspective, Erik Erikson's theory of development connects to

how the mind of a priest is developed, “the generative adult treats others as worthy equals; never

harms others on purpose; maintains the world positively for future generations; and cares for

children and others” (2012, McGrath-Merkle, p.74). This does not define an offender, especially

a priest. It seems that priests who sexually abuse children, do the exact opposite of the standard

generative adult. McGrath-Merkle also mentions “a predisposition on the part of bishops to lack

generative character traits is due to celibacy” (2012, McGrath-Merkle, pp.76) Priest are
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insensitive to children, they do not know how to act towards them because of their

underdeveloped generative traits.

Although these perspectives are valuable, the underlying problem is how can we

protect children in the Church, in their home, and can we end child sexual abuse effectively. The

three perspectives add importance to make this topic more important because there are more

religious influential factors that derive priests to act sinfully than previously thought, their profile

compares differently than the common predator. Understanding the priests’ motives and

behavioral development can move the current topic of child sexual abuse in a new direction

which can direct solely on new preventions and successful removal of these priests from their

position. The focus of this research is to answer questions that can put these children not at risk.

Some questions intended to be answered are,

 What actions can be taken to assure that priests are capable of executing their position

properly?

 What needs to change in the seminary and Church for priests to properly develop

their personal development?

 What characteristic do victims have in common that make them targets?

 How can the environment of the Church improve to protect children efficiently?

Research from credible databases such as Academic Search Premier and Nexus Uni will

provide worldwide publications of articles and data from criminal cases, criminologist and

psychologist findings. Some keywords that will specifically be searched for are child sexual

abuse, catholic church, priests, criminal cases, prevention, laws, risk factors, church policies

and protection. With this, new methods in the Church’s system and in the law can be evaluated
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to create a safe environment for children in the Church, lower the rates of child sexual abuse and

lower the chance of priests from developing a premeditated behavior.

The involvement in this topic will lead to the decline of Catholicism and the position of

clergy as well, however the life of a child is more important. As Pope Francis said in a recent

speech in Chile, “It is just to ask for forgiveness and to support victims with as much strength as

possible, even as we take steps to ensure that this never happens again” (Londono, E., &

Bonnefoy, P., 2018, January 17). Forgiveness and support is important, but more actions can be

taken to begin the process of combating this issue. Child sexual abuse should not be a problem

today because the criminal consequences priests receive should scare future predators of the

church. Survivors of child sexual abuse are left betrayed by the law, their offenders and

sometimes their God. The Catholic Church needs to speak out on this immoral and undervalued

issue to light the way for the future children of the world.
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References

Anderson, J. (2015). Comprehending and Rehabilitating Roman Catholic Clergy Offenders of

Child Sexual Abuse. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 24(7), 772-795. Retrieved from

http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu

Londono, E., & Bonnefoy, P. (2018, January 17). In Chile, Pope Apologizes For ‘Damage’ From

Abuse. New York Times. p. A4. Retrieved from

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/world/americas/pope-francis-chile-sexual-

abuse.html

McGrath-Merkle, C. (2010). Generativity and the U.S. Roman Catholic Bishops’ Responses to

Priests’ Sexual Abuse of Minors. Journal of Religion & Health, 49(1), 73-86.

Terry, K. J., & Freilich, J. D. (2012). Understanding Child Sexual Abuse by Catholic Priests

from a Situational Perspective. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 21(4), 437-455.