A group set up by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland to investigate clerical sex abuse has reported "that there are higher levels of sexually abusive behaviour in the church and by religious professionals than in other comparable caring professions". Drawing from research in North America, CTBI quoted from one report that clergy were "exploiting their parishioners at twice the rate of secular parishioners".
Research also showed, it said, that "factors of institutional failure and negligence were seriously responsible for the problems of sexual abuse in the church". Catholic priests who had abused children "were unanimous" that the absence of awareness training and of teaching on human development contributed to sexual misconduct in the church.
The CTBI represents 31 churches in these islands, including the Catholic Church in England and Wales, the Catholic Church in Scotland, the Anglican Churches, as well as Presbyterian and Methodist Churches. The Irish Catholic Church is an associate member. In September 2000 it set up a 12-member Group on Sexual Abuse. It visited the Republic last April and met representatives of the Irish Bishops' Child Protection Office, of the Conference of Religious of Ireland, of Irish Survivors of Child Abuse, and of the childcare agency Bernardo's.
In the resulting 176-page Time for Action report, it said they had observed "a tendency for the hierarchies of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England to deflect attention" from institutional failure in addressing the problem "by focusing responsibility on the individual members of the pastorate". This, it said, "loses track of the fact that such people were chosen by the institution, formed and trained by the institution, and commissioned to minister in a system of oversight and care designed and supported by the institution. We would be concerned if church hierarchies and other bodies of leadership tried to scapegoat the ministers in an attempt to deflect blame away from the shortcomings of the senior leadership and the governing bodies of the church."
The report concluded that the high levels of sexual abuse in the church could be explained by a combination of "powerful but susceptible people with sexual problems, in stressful jobs without boundaries, working with other people often vulnerable and needy without boundaries, in an organisation without training or supervision, in an ecclesiastical culture dominated by sexual shame and endemic secrecy".
As sexual beings clergy often felt caught in a trap, "experiencing sexual desire and sexual need and, at the same time, experiencing shame and distress at the presence of these natural processes". Such shame often sought comfort "in religion and at the same time can drive addictive compulsive behaviours", it said.
Research among older Catholic priests showed many had an "arrested psychosexual development", with little sexual experience before ordination and "little experience of or capacity for intimate relationships with either men or women. They bring, therefore, to adult church leadership a serious sexual and relationship immaturity." It referred to one research project which found that celibacy kept such men "arrested, underdeveloped, secretive, and susceptible to committing sexually abusive behaviours".
As well as the psychology of individual clergy the power, nature and construction of ministry contributed to the origin and causation of sexual abuse, it said. Ministry was "fraught with dual roles, boundary overlaps and indistinct demarcations. The same person can ask you for money, join you for dinner, sit with you in grief, take your children swimming, lead you in worship and join you for coffee when you are home alone." This "boundary-blurring role ambiguity" significantly contributed to the vulnerability of clergy to breaches of trust. Additionally there was isolation, stressed "without exception" by Catholic priests interviewed for the report.
