"Sexual abuse in social context"

The media drumbeat on Catholic clerical sexual abuse lately would seem to leave the impression that sexual predation upon minors is a uniquely Catholic problem, stemming from all those traditional "Papist hangups" about everything from requirements of an exclusively male clergy and clerical celibacy to prohibitions of auto-erotic activity that, so-it-is-thought, leaves Papist priests jumping around like horny toads. This impression, of course, is as unsupported by statistical evidence as the absurd 'inference' (I use the word lightly) that a good dose of promiscuous sexual self-indulgence would remedy the situation.

Pat Wingert, in "Mean Men" (Newsweek Web Exclusive, April 10, 2010), quoted by Elijamaria, in "Faith, Foul Deeds, and Falsehoods" (Irenikon, April 10, 2010), writes:

The Catholic sex-abuse stories emerging every day suggest that Catholics have a much bigger problem with child molestation than other denominations and the general population. Many point to peculiarities of the Catholic Church (its celibacy rules for priests, its insular hierarchy, its exclusion of women) to infer that there's something particularly pernicious about Catholic clerics that predisposes them to these horrific acts. It's no wonder that, back in 2002—when the last Catholic sex-abuse scandal was making headlines—a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll^[xxxix] found that 64 percent of those queried thought Catholic priests "frequently" abused children.

Yet experts say there's simply no data to support the claim at all. No formal comparative study has ever broken down child sexual abuse by denomination, and only the Catholic Church has released detailed data about its own. But based on the surveys and studies conducted by different denominations over the past 30 years, experts who study child abuse say they see little reason to conclude that sexual abuse is mostly a Catholic issue. "We don't see the Catholic Church as a hotbed of this or a place that has a bigger problem than anyone else," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Googling for comparative statistics, it is therefore hard to come by good statistics -- at least easily -- for many Protestant demonimations. Presumably the reason is, in part at least, because many of these denominations have no centralized bureaucracies but are congregationally autonomously administered, autonomous entities. I know myself from experiences related to me by a former Baptist colleague at an erstwhile academic institution how the indiscretions of a pastor were hushed up at his local church and the pastor was laterally (horizontally) 'promoted,' presumably to some other 'ministry' elsewhere. Where have we heard that before?

William Moyer, in "Child sex abuse by Protestant clergy difficult to document" (Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, Monday August 27, 2007, posted by StopBaptistPredators.org), writes:

Allegations and confirmed cases of sex abuse by priests against children in the Catholic Church have been well documented since widespread reports of abuse first surfaced in the Boston area in the early 2000s.

But tracking allegations and confirmed cases of misconduct by Protestant clergy is an elusive task because Christianity's other ecclesiastical division is wildly diverse, congregational and sometimes staunchly independent compared to Catholicism's centralized hierarchy.

Ed Hart of the Central New York Baptist Association said all 42 churches in his jurisdiction outlined by Broome, Tioga, Delaware, Herkimer, Steuben and Oswego counties are autonomous. Local church leaders would handle complaints against pastors at the congregational level but would not be required to report anything to Hart or any other denominational officials.

Still, some statistics can be gleaned from three insurance companies that provide liability coverage for 165,500 Protestant churches in the United States:

• The largest company, Church Mutual of Merrill, Wis., with 96,000 clients including the Wyoming Conference, reported an annual average of 100 child sex abuse cases during the past decade.
• GuideOne, headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa, reported an average of 160 reports every year for the past two decades among its 45,000 clients.
• About 75 claims have been investigated by Brotherhood Mutual in Fort Wayne, Ind., each year for the past 15 years, but the company did not specify if all complaints involved minors.

A post with some of the most detailed statistics I have found is the special report produced some years ago entitled "SEXUAL ABUSE IN SOCIAL CONTEXT: CATHOLIC CLERGY AND OTHER PROFESSIONALS" (Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, February 2004), which provides a comparatively detailed analysis of national, secular, and interdenominational Christian, Jewish, and sectarian (e.g. Jehovah's Witness) statistics. As the report is rather long, I will excerpt only the conclusion here:

The issue of child sexual molestation is deserving of serious scholarship. Too often, assumptions have been made that this problem is worse in the Catholic clergy than in other sectors of society. This report does not support this conclusion. Indeed, it shows that family members are the most likely to sexually molest a child. It also shows that the incidence of the sexual abuse of a minor is slightly higher^[*] among the Protestant clergy than among the Catholic clergy, and that it is significantly higher among public school teachers than among ministers and priests.

In a survey for the Wall Street Journal-NBC News, it was found that 64 percent of the public thought that Catholic priests frequently abused children.^[xxxix] This is outrageously unfair, but it is not surprising given the media fixation on this issue. While it would be unfair to blame the media for the scandal in the Catholic Church, the constant drumbeat of negative reporting surely accounts for these remarkably skewed results.^[xl]

Without comparative data, little can be learned. Numbers are not without meaning, but they don’t count for much unless a baseline has been established. Moreover, sexual misconduct is difficult to measure given its mostly private nature. While crime statistics are helpful, we know from social science research that most crimes go unreported. This is especially true of sexual abuse crimes. At the end of the day, estimates culled from survey research are the best we can do.

By putting the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church in perspective, it is hoped that this report will make for a more fair and educated public response.

Notes:

1. [*] Earlier in the report, one reads: "... in the authoritative work by Penn State professor Philip Jenkins, Pedophiles and Priests (New York: Oxford University Press [pp. 50 and 81]), it was determined that between .2 and 1.7 percent of priests are pedophiles. The figure among the Protestant clergy ranges between 2 and 3 percent." [back]



2. [xxxix] The dates of the study were April 5-7, 2002. It was reported in Roper Center at University of Connecticut Public Opinion Online, Accession Number 0402247. Hart and Teeter Research Companies did the survey. [back]


3. [xl] The Catholic League took pains to credit the media with fair coverage of the scandal. See the “Executive Summary” of the Catholic League’s 2002 Report on Anti-Catholicism. It is available online at www.catholicleague.org. [back]