Sunday, June 23, 2002
Priests less likely to offend again
Experts say most sex abusers in orders don't repeat
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Experts who have treated abusive priests say that while some are true pedophiles who must be removed from public ministry, situations of one instance of poor judgment or immaturity are not unusual.
As a group, they say, such priests are less likely than a typical molester to act again.
“Don't forget this key: that Catholic clergy are not like everyone else, because this is a very unique culture,” said the Rev. Richard Sipe, a former priest, retired psychotherapist and author who since 1960 has interviewed more than 1,000 priests, including many who sexually abused children.
Father Sipe, who wrote the 1995 book Sex, Priests, and Power: Anatomy of a Crisis, is among experts who argue for a policy that differentiates between true pedophiles and those who make one mistake out of immaturity.
But Kathi Peterson, administrator of the sex offender treatment program for the Kentucky Corrections Department, said a priest with one known victim may have had others who did not report the offense.
“The fact that he has offended against even one child, and that is known, in my mind that would be enough to remove him from any contact with children,” Ms. Peterson said.
Amid a national controversy over allegations of priest abuse, U.S. bishops voted last week to do just that, saying any priest who has ever molested a child — even once — must be removed from public ministry.
But Father Sipe said his research shows that some priests are what he would describe as “transient pedophiles,” because their attraction to children is temporary and dissipates as they mature and get treatment.
A significant number of abusers he interviewed had their adolescence and sexual development delayed by entering celibate religious life as teen-agers, he said. Sexually inexperienced when they entered seminaries, they generally were given little or no opportunity to discuss their sexuality.
Louisville psychologist Dennis Wagner, who has treated several priest sex offenders during the past 15 years, said all the priests he has counseled have responded to treatment.
“My experience is that many people respond very well to treatment and develop insights about themselves and their behavior and learn to manage that behavior and those impulses so they don't act out again,” Mr. Wagner said.
Mental health professionals also said the overall risk of molesters reoffending is lower than the public perceives.
“I'm one of those who agree that you don't need an indiscriminate purge against everybody,” said Dr. Fred Berlin, founder of the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic in Baltimore. A 60-year-old priest who had a brief relationship with a teenager 40 years ago poses little risk today, he said.
But Dr. Berlin and others acknowledge that it is impossible to predict with certainty whether a sex offender will commit another act of abuse.
Ms. Peterson, with the state Corrections Department, said priests and other ministers have gone through the department's treatment program, and “we have recommended that they not work around kids. ... It's a high-risk situation for these men.”
Mr. Wagner, the Louisville psychologist, said that with some priests, “the larger issue has to do with seminary training and the attitude toward sexuality when a lot of these men were trained.”
Young men used to go into seminaries when they were 13, before they had developed a “healthy sense of their sexual selves,” Mr. Wagner said. Those who enter the priesthood now do so when they are older, and seminaries are doing a better job of discussing how to appropriately channel sexual thoughts and desires, he said.
At St. Meinrad School of Theology in southern Indiana, which trains many of the priests in Kentucky and Indiana, the average age of seminarians last fall was 33, with the youngest being 22, said spokeswoman Mary Jean Schumacher. The seminary's high school closed in 1960, and its college closed in 1998.
“They have a lot more maturity. They have a lot more sense of self” and experience with relationships now, she said.
Ms. Schumacher said the seminary began its first class that focused on human sexuality in the mid-1970s, and now seminarians take classes during all five years of their training that deal with sexuality, celibacy, intimacy, boundaries and ethics.
Father Sipe said such changes may have reduced the number of priests molesting children in the past 20 years. Almost all the abuse alleged in the 133 lawsuits filed against the Archdiocese of Louisville occurred before the early 1980s.
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Priests less likely to offend again
