Saint Gregory the Great: On the Pastoral Rule

[Originally written for a class. In light of all the recent scandals among the episcopacy, I thought posting the following would be relevant.]

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“So exalted is the view of the episcopal calling taken by the Regula Pastoralis, that it has been said that it made the bishops who made the modern nations.”[1]

Saint Gregory the Great’s On the Pastoral Rule (Liber Regulae Pastoralis) immediately established itself as a classic of pastoral theology and spirituality.[2] Written in response to a criticism that St. Gregory had attempted to flee from his responsibilities upon election to the papacy,[3] the Pastoral Rule was circulated in Spain, translated into Greek and distributed among the Eastern Churches by order of the Emperor Maurice, and spread throughout Ireland and England by SS. Columban and Augustine.[4] Nor did its influence wane, for by the 9th century, Alfred the Great, desiring to reform the clergy of England, translated the work into Old English and commanded each bishop in his kingdom to read it.[5] In France around the same time, each newly consecrated bishop received a copy of the Canons along with the Pastoral Rule.[6] By the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas relied on it as the principal basis for his exposition on the episcopacy in the Summa Theologiae.[7] Finally, in the 20th century, Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, commended it as contributing to a proper notion of priestly perfection.[8] The Pastoral Rule not only sets high standards but hands on the practical wisdom of a great contemplative saint who did not shirk from laboring in the world. Its enduring impact on the spirituality of the priest and bishop combined with its sheer abundance of excellent advice in navigating the delicate balance between the contemplative and active lives make the work incontestably important for the seminarian and priest. In reading the work, two points struck me most powerfully: first, the focus on balance that St. Gregory brings in explaining the work of the pastor, and second, the necessity of great sanctity in order for the pastor to conduct an effective apostolate. I will explain these points and their relevance for growth in the spiritual life.

The Pastoral Rule eminently (while not consciously) embodies the Aristotelian-Thomistic notion that virtue lies in the golden mean between excess and defect.[9] St. Gregory makes use of the balance between contrasting elements in order to explain the virtues and knowledge necessary for the pastor. For example, a man may rightfully flee from the office of pastor out of humility, yet if God calls him to this duty, to deny it would reveal prideful obstinacy.[10] The pastor must exercise prudence in keeping silence but be forthright and profitable in speech, avoiding the defect of an excessive silence that would imply approval of the sinful behavior of those deserving correction and, on the other hand, the excess of careless and immoderate rebuke.[11] Similarly, the pastor must balance gentleness and rigor, gently correcting sins of weakness or ignorance, reprimanding more sternly sins of malice, yet without excessive harshness, for “when reproof blazes forth immoderately, the hearts of the sinners fall into dejection and despair.”[12] St. Gregory elaborates on the careful balance required between the contemplative and active aspects of pastoral life. The pastor’s contemplation must be exalted above all others, yet like St. Paul, who made provision for married life to faithful under his care out of concern for the concupiscence of the flesh, he must accommodate himself to the needs of the weak.[13] Like the example of our Lord, Who ascended the mountain to pray to His Father and descended to minister to sinners during the day, so “good rulers, who, though they strive after the highest things by contemplation, should nevertheless by their compassion share in the needs of the weak.”[14] St. Gregory explains beautifully that “charity rises to sublime heights, when in pity it is drawn by the lowly […] and the more kindly it stoops to infirmity, the mightier is its reach to the highest.”[15] Ultimately, St. Gregory establishes that contemplation takes priority since the faithful must receive from the spiritual abundance of the pastor, like water overflowing from an interior cistern,[16] but his contemplation must not be so prolonged that the pastor neglects his responsibilities to his flock.[17]

The other type of balance on which St. Gregory expounds regards the pastor’s knowledge so that he may adapt his manner of teaching to each class of individual, temperament, and character. Here St. Gregory reveals a profound understanding of psychology combined with the most developed prudence and breadth of experience. The saint compares the pastor’s work to the playing of a harp, where each listener is a different string, to which the harpist must apply a different stroke suited to each in order to produce a skillful and harmonious melody.[18] Gregory goes on to elucidate around 40 different classes of people, of various temperaments, characters, virtues, vices, and experiences, and how the preacher is effectively to teach them all. His discussion of encouraging the overly taciturn provides an example of the saint’s penetrating insight into the human heart that depreciates the supposed genius of Freud’s “talking cure”:

Often when the taciturn suffer injustice, they come to feel keener grief from not speaking about what they are suffering. […] Wounds that are closed are the more painful. […] People, therefore, who are more silent than is expedient, should realise [sic] that they but aggravate the vehemence of their grief in withholding speech [….][19]

Clearly, to achieve this remarkable balance and depth requires profound sanctity and docility to the movements of the Holy Ghost as for example when St. Gregory states: “Humility is to be preached to the proud in a way not to increase fear in the timorous, and confidence [to the timorous] as not to encourage the unbridled impetuosity in the proud. […] The highest good is to be so praised, that the good in little things is not discarded.”[20] Gregory’s insistence on striking that balance and reaching that summit of virtue for an effective pastoral ministry brings me to my second point of interest.

One of St. Gregory’s principal points in his Pastoral Rule is the sanctity requisite for the great responsibility of pastoral ministry. As St. Thomas succinctly puts it, in a manner with which St. Gregory would undoubtedly have agreed, the bishop is the perfector of others.[21] The pastor must be holy by reason of the dignity of his office as the life of the shepherd is so far above the life of the sheep.[22] St. Gregory warns, “No one ventures to teach any art unless he has learned it after deep thought,” and that the government of souls is “the art of arts.”[23] The saint compares the pastor to a physician who would be rash to attempt to heal others without having first mastered the art of medicine himself, and further than the physician, in order for the pastor to heal souls, he himself must first be healed of sinfulness and even attachment to sin: “If, then, in [the physician’s] practice ailments still thrive in him, with what presumption does he hasten to heal the afflicted while he carries a sore on his own face?”[24] St. Gregory makes the vivid comparison between the sinful pastor and an untrustworthy mediator sent to intercede for a party: “For we all know full well that when a person is out of favour [sic] and sent to intercede, the mind of the incensed person is moved to greater anger,”[25] so too a pastor stuck in the mire of sin will not only fail to draw down the graces of God for his flock but will also lead to his own ruin and that of those under his care. Pastors who are still beginners in the spiritual life are like fledgling birds attempting “to fly upwards before their wings are fully developed” and therefore “fall down from where they tried to soar.”[26] With many other different analogies, St. Gregory argues that the pastor must teach what he has learned through personal experience more than abstract study,[27] must lead by the example of his own virtuous conduct,[28] must please men by the goodness of his character so as to draw men to a love of truth and holiness,[29] and in short, must

make himself heard rather by deeds than by words, and that by his righteous way of life should imprint footsteps for men to tread in [….] Let [pastors] first rouse themselves up by lofty deeds, and then make others solicitous to live good lives. […] Then, and only then, let them set in order the lives of others by their words.[30]

On the other hand, St. Gregory’s overwhelming emphasis on the pastor’s personal holiness may perhaps confuse some readers: why does St. Gregory not also focus on the pastor’s sacramental ministry? With the Pastoral Rule St. Gregory intends to guide bishops in their pastoral ministry rather than priests in their sacramental ministry, and one should keep in mind that Gregory’s vision of the pastor as spiritual physician and exemplar implies that the effectiveness of the pastor’s ministry corresponds with the degree of his holiness. This difference of focus reveals why he spends so much time focusing on the personal qualifications of the pastor as well as the prudential knowledge needed to guide properly the various classes of individuals under his care. Despite this difference, the necessity of holiness applies also to priests as Fr. Antonio Royo Marin, OP, notes forcefully, for while it is true that the sacramental aspect of priestly ministry possesses an intrinsic efficacy derived ex opere operato,

one cannot entertain the slightest doubt that in all those other activities the efficacy of which depend on the proper dispositions of the instrument, i.e. ex opere operantis (and these are all those activities of the priest except those we referred to in the valid administration of the sacraments), the supernatural efficacy of his apostolate will be in direct and immediate proportion to the degree of sanctity and perfection of the minister of God, and a poor curate in Ars, ignorant and scorned yet aflame with divine love, will convert more sinners and bring more souls to God than all the professors of the Sorbonne in Paris combined.[31]

The importance of both points discussed should be clear for the seminarian and priest. The success of his extra-sacramental ministry hinges on the degree to which he is docile to the Holy Ghost and acts in persona Christi not only in an official manner but also a personal manner, and St. Gregory provides us with an eminently trustworthy guide to develop those virtues specific to pastoral ministry.

St. Gregory’s Pastoral Rule is truly a sobering read. After enumerating the degree of exalted virtues and the vastness of necessary wisdom to pastor souls effectively, the saint closes his work with a chapter on the importance of remaining humble. He writes, “It is necessary that […] the eye of the soul should turn its gaze on its infirmities […] and as [pastors] are not able to overcome the very little [faults], they should not presume to pride themselves on the great things they accomplish.”[32] This book provides us an opportunity to reflect seriously on the maturity and the balance required for priestly ministry as well as the heavy burden of responsibility that accompanies it. It also emphasizes in another manner the fact that God is the author of all good things, that any good we possess is from Him (Jas. 1:17); as St. Paul asks, “What has thou that thou hast not received?” (1 Cor. 4:7). And reminiscent of our Lord’s parable of the talents, St. Gregory reminds us that those who have been given much are expected to help others, for “the gifts which they have received [are] not for their own sakes only, but for the sake of others also.”[33] Our Lord “came forth from the bosom of His Father into our midst, that He might benefit many,” and hence the love of God must overflow into the love of neighbor for God’s sake.[34] May we learn from the example of St. Gregory the Great, who, despite his personal protests to the contrary,[35] preached through the lofty holiness of his life in addition to his words.

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Footnotes:

1. Horace K. Mann, The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Part 1: 590–657 (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1925), 1:241. On the influence of the Pastoral Rule, see St. Gregory the Great, Pastoral Care, trans. Henry Davis, in Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, eds. Johannes Quasten and Joseph C. Plumpe, no. 11 (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1950), 9–12 [hereafter Davis, Pastoral Care, page, book, and chapter].

2. Abbot Snow, St. Gregory the Great: His Work and His Spirit (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, Ltd., 1924), 90–91.

3. Davis, Pastoral Care, 4, translator’s introduction.

4. Ibid., 10.

5. Ibid., 11.

6. Mann, The Lives of the Popes, 242.

7. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, vol. 47: 2a2ae. 183–189: The Pastoral and Religious Lives, ed. Jordan Aumann (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 60–61, footnote a [hereafter ST].

8. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, On the Sanctification of Priests According to the Needs of Our Times, trans. Paul M. Kimball, (Camillus, NY: Dolorosa Press, 2013), ch. 1, art. 3.

9. Cf. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, trans. M. Timothea Doyle (Rockford, IL: TAN Books, 1989), 1:64–65.

10. Davis, Pastoral Care, 32, I, 6. St. Thomas expands on this argument in ST 2a2ae.185.2, even quoting from the same passage of St. Gregory’s Pastoral Rule.

11. Ibid., 51–55, II, 4.

12. Ibid., 85, II, 10.

13. Ibid., 56–57, II, 5.

14. Ibid., 58.

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid., 175, III, 24. St. Gregory writes, “The preacher drinks the water of his own cistern [.…] To be sure, it is proper that he should drink first, and then give others to drink by his preaching” (ibid.). This image anticipates St. Bernard’s striking comparison between the reservoir and the canal, which forms a perfect summary of St. Gregory’s thought on those seeking too eagerly for the pastoral office: “Today there are many in the Church who act like canals, the reservoirs are far too rare. So urgent is the charity of those through whom the streams of heavenly doctrine flow to us, that they want to pour it forth before they have been filled; they are more ready to speak than to listen, impatient to teach what they have not grasped, and full of presumption to govern others while they know not how to govern themselves” (“Sermon 18” in On the Song of Songs, trans. Kilian Walsh, in Cistercian Fathers Series: Number Four: The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, ed. M. Basil Pennington [Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1971] 1:134, n. 3).

17. Ibid., 68–75, II, 7. St. Thomas famously perfects this line of argumentation when demonstrating that the mixed life rises above both the contemplative and active, for “just as it is better to illumine than merely to shine, so it is better to give to others the things contemplated than simply to contemplate” (ST 2a2ae.188.6). Interestingly, St. Thomas also argues that this mixed life is more perfect because it more closely resembles the perfection of the episcopal state (ibid.).

18. Ibid., 89–90, III, prologue.

19. Ibid., 130–131, III, 14.

20. Ibid., 227, III, 36.

21. ST 2a2ae.184.7.

22. Davis, Pastoral Care, 45, II, 1.

23. Ibid., 21, I, 1.

24. Ibid., 38, I, 9.

25. Ibid., 39.

26. Ibid., 180, III, 25.

27. Ibid., 23–25, I, 2.

28. Ibid., 48–51, II, 3.

29. Ibid., 77, II, 8.

30. Ibid., 232–233, III, 40.

31. Antonio Royo Marin, Teología de la perfección cristiana (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autore Cristianos, 2015), 806–807, n. 669, 5 (my translation). Cf. also St. John of the Cross who writes, “As for the one who teaches, the profit is usually commensurate with his interior preparedness. […] We frequently see, insofar as it is possible to judge here below, that the better the life of the preacher the more abundant the fruit, no matter how lowly his style, poor his rhetoric, and plain the doctrine” (Ascent of Mount Carmel, trans. K. Kavanaugh and O. Rodriguez, in The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross, eds. K. Kavanaugh and O. Rodriguez [Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1973], 291, III, 45).

32. Davis, Pastoral Care, 237, IV.

33. Ibid., 29–30, I, 5.

34. Ibid., 31.

35. Ibid., 237, IV.

Hypocrisy and the Grounds for Belief

Many (you can find examples all over the place if you're paying attention) remark that they will not come back to the Church, that they will leave the Church, etc., if the Church doesn't change its position on this or that issue. This attitude measures the grounds of faith against a political agenda, reducing faith to the natural from the supernatural. It is very similar to attributing to the demonic the works of the Holy Ghost (something Christ called an "unforgivable sin" (Mt 12:31-32; Mk 3:28-29)) because God Himself proposes to us faith as the means of salvation, and we must believe Him on His authority. Hence to reduce faith to anything else is to reject Him and His authority, at least implicitly (i.e. without full awareness of what one is rejecting or doing).

This basic reason of rejecting the faith also is used in relation to the sex-abuse scandal of the Church. It is claimed that because the (priests/bishops of the) Church has committed grievous evils not only in the abuse itself but also in its systematic cover-up, therefore faith is rendered impossible. This twist is interesting because it often mixes psychological reasons under an intellectual-political guise. Usually it is unclear what is impossible to accept—the object of faith, namely, God and all that He has revealed; or faith's corollaries, such as the dogmatic, teaching authority of the Church (usually this one especially and all that it applies to). Either way, faith is measured by man's standards, and not even man as man but man as fallen.

There is a certain incongruity in most peoples' minds between the claim to hold the fullness of God's self-revelation, the "fullness of truth" however it may apply but especially in the area of morality, and the fact that most in the Church do not live in accordance with that revealed fullness. But this was Plato's error, namely, that the cause of moral evil is ignorance and that once we know what is right and how to do it, we will do the right thing.

But what is there left to the intuition that people who claim to have the fullness of moral truth should at least live in a noticeably more morally-upright manner than those around them? I think that the intuition should point us not to the falsity of revelation but to the deep extent of sin's influence on the human condition, an influence far deeper than anyone usually suspects. It is why we are hardly ever really scandalized by the Crucifixion—sin has numbed and hardened our hearts to the point where what should be the most heart-wrenching sight possible in human experience is simply placed as decoration between women's breasts ("crucifix cleavage" is a sacrilege).

And this blindness to the depths of sin is to be expected, especially in first-world living, where daily comfort very conveniently hides the ugliness of the rest of the world and even the evil in our midst—in sports, politics, entertainment, academics, science, religion, etc.

Instead of thinking that this intuition proves the falsity of revelation or the falsity of the Church's claim to the fullness of truth or the nonexistence of moral absolutes or the impossibility of our being able to discover and know those moral principles, this intuition should rather remind us more and more clearly of the ease with which we deceive ourselves on a daily basis from the truth that is right in front of our faces most of the time.

Debate and contradiction on what is moral does not in itself prove that there are no moral absolutes nor that we cannot know them (to prove such should require much more philosophical argumentation than what can be condensed into a slogan supporting relativism). It simply proves that it's difficult for humans to adjudicate the false from the true when left to ourselves. St. Thomas Aquinas made this same point: divine revelation was necessary because without it, a few alone could come to a knowledge of the truth but only through great argument, over a long span of time, and with the admixture of many errors (cf. Summa Theologiæ 1.1.1).

Hypocrisy doesn't prove the falsity of (the object of) belief; it merely proves the falsity of adherence to that belief.

Ronald L. Conte on Unnatural Sexual Acts as Marital Foreplay

Question — 

Are unnatural sexual acts moral to use as foreplay, prior to an act of natural marital relations open to life? 

This all-too-common question asks whether married couples might use various types of unnatural sexual acts — manual sexual acts (masturbation of self or spouse, or various devices used in the same way), or oral sexual acts, or anal sexual acts — in the context of a subsequent, concomitant, or prior act of natural marital relations open to life. Sometimes the question refers specifically to completed sexual acts, i.e. acts that include sexual climax for one or both spouses. Other times the question refers to these same types of acts, but absent climax.

In a comment below, Mr. Conte clarifies that by sexual act, he means, 

... any deliberate use of the genital sexual faculty. Acts that are peripherally related to sexuality, such as flirting, kissing, embracing, are not per se sexual acts, even if they are in some sense sexual. 

When referring to per se sexual acts, Church documents use expressions such as: “the deliberate use of the sexual faculty” or “every genital act” or “every use of the faculty given by God for the procreation of new life”.

Source: ronconte [Ronald L. Conte, Jr.], comment, February 27, 2011 (4:31 p.m. PST), on "Unnatural Sexual Acts as Marital Foreplay," The Reproach of Christ Blog, February 20, 2011, accessed December 9, 2013, http://ronconte.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/unnatural-sexual-acts-as-marital-foreplay/.

To continue with the article:

There are three fonts of morality: (1) intention, (2) moral object, (3) circumstances. The Magisterium definitively teaches that to be moral an act must have three good fonts; any one bad font makes the act immoral and therefore sinful. [...]

The three fonts may be summarized in this way:

FIRST FONT: The intended end (or purpose) for which the act is chosen by the human person. The intention or purpose of the act is in the subject, the person who acts.

SECOND FONT: The intentionally chosen act with its moral nature, which is determined by the inherent ordering of the act toward its moral object. The moral object is the end, in terms of morality, toward which the chosen act is directed, in and of itself. The choice of an act by the human person necessarily includes a choice of the act and its essential moral nature and its moral object. The moral nature and moral object of the act are in the objective act, not in the subject who chooses the act.

THIRD FONT: The circumstances pertaining to the morality of the act, especially the consequences. A moral evaluation of the reasonably anticipated good and bad consequences of the chosen act, in terms of the love of God and neighbor, determines the morality of this font.

There is no other basis for the morality of an act apart from these three fonts. For any act to be moral, all three fonts must be good. If any one font is bad, the act is immoral, even if the other fonts are good. Each and every knowingly chosen act is judged solely by the three fonts of morality. The three fonts of morality are the sole determinant of the morality of each and every knowingly chosen act, without any exception whatsoever. Whoever rejects or contradicts this teaching overturns the very foundation of every moral teaching in the one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Analysis of the Question

1. First Font – The intention is to use certain types of acts as foreplay, for the purpose of preparing for an act of natural marital relations. The intended end is good: natural marital relations open to life.

2. Second Font – The Magisterium teaches that, in order to be moral, a sexual act must be marital and unitive and procreative. The marital, unitive, and procreative meanings are the three interrelated good moral objects of any moral sexual act.

Evil is a deprivation of good; moral evil is a deprivation of some good required by the moral law, i.e. required by the love of God and the love of neighbor as self. The love of God and neighbor requires that each and every sexual act be marital, unitive, and procreative. When a sexual act is non-marital or non-unitive or non-procreative, then the act has a deprivation in its moral object, making the object evil and the act intrinsically evil.

An unnatural sexual act is intrinsically evil because this type of act is not procreative; it is inherently ordered toward the procreative meaning intended by God for each and every sexual act. Unnatural sexual acts are also not truly unitive (even if there is a type of mere physical union) because this is not the type of union intended by God for marriage. So even when the two persons committing the unnatural sexual acts are married to each other, the procreative and unitive meanings are absent, making such acts intrinsically evil and always gravely immoral.

3. Third Font – Sometimes this question is posed with a description of some dire (or supposedly dire) circumstance, such that the spouses would supposedly be unable to achieve natural marital relations without unnatural sexual acts as foreplay, or the wife would be unable to achieve sexual climax without unnatural sexual acts before, during, or after natural marital relations.

I find it difficult to believe that a Catholic married husband and wife cannot possibly consummate their love for one another, within the holy Sacrament established by the love of God, without the use of intrinsically evil and gravely immoral sexual acts. But even if this were the case, the Magisterium teaches that intrinsically evil acts are always immoral, regardless of intention or circumstances. [...]

Unnatural sexual acts are intrinsically evil due to the deprivation of the procreative and unitive meanings. And the presence or absence of sexual climax does not change the moral object. An unnatural sexual act with sexual climax has the same evil moral object as an unnatural sexual act without sexual climax. The moral object has not changed, and so the moral nature of the act has not changed; it remains intrinsically evil. Therefore, no type of unnatural sexual act, with or without climax, can be used by a married couple at any time, regardless of whether or when an act of natural marital relations occurs.

All non-marital sexual acts are intrinsically evil and always gravely immoral. All non-unitive sexual acts are intrinsically evil and always gravely immoral. All non-procreative sexual acts are intrinsically evil and always gravely immoral. [...]

But lest anyone claim that no theologians give this type of answer, consider the following quotes from Catholic theologian Alice von Hildebrand. She wrote an article, criticizing the approach to sexuality used by Christopher West, and explaining the position of her late husband, theologian Dietrich von Hildebrand, on sexuality and in particular marital sexual ethics. Her answer is the theological position of herself as well as her husband, whom Pope Pius XII called a “twentieth century Doctor of the Church.” [...]

Saint Augustine of Hippo, in his moral treatise ‘On the Good of Marriage,’ writes on the subject of sexual intercourse within marriage:

“…nor be changed into that use which is against nature, on which the Apostle could not be silent, when speaking of the excessive corruptions of unclean and impious men…. by changing the natural use into that which is against nature, which is more damnable when it is done in the case of husband or wife.” (Augustine, On the Good of Marriage, section 11).

The expression ‘that use which is against nature’ refers to unnatural sexual acts, such as oral sex, anal sex, or manual sex. Saint Augustine condemns such acts unequivocally. He even states that such unnatural sexual acts are even more damnable (i.e. even more serious mortal sins) when these take place within marriage. For God is even more offended by a sexual mortal sin that takes place within the Sacrament of Marriage, since this offense is not only against nature, but also against a Holy Sacrament. “So then, of all to whom much has been given, much will be required. And of those to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be asked.” (Lk 12:48).

“For, whereas that natural use, when it pass beyond the compact of marriage, that is, beyond the necessity of begetting, is pardonable in the case of a wife, damnable in the case of an harlot; that which is against nature is execrable when done in the case of an harlot, but more execrable in the case of a wife…. But, when the man shall wish to use the member of the wife not allowed for this purpose, the wife is more shameful, if she suffer it to take place in her own case, than if in the case of another woman.” (Augustine, On the Good of Marriage, section 12).

In this passage, Saint Augustine first compares natural sexual relations within marriage, done out of impure desires, to the same natural sexual acts outside of marriage. He teaches that having natural sexual relations within marriage, when done to satisfy a somewhat impure desire, is pardonable, i.e. a venial sin, but that natural sexual relations outside of marriage is damnable, i.e. a mortal sin. Then Saint Augustine goes on to consider ‘that which is against nature,’ i.e. unnatural sexual acts. He condemns such unnatural sexual acts as ‘execrable’ (utterly detestable, abominable, abhorrent). Therefore these acts are among the worst of the sexual mortal sins. He also teaches that unnatural sexual acts within marriage, far from being permitted because they take place within marriage, are even worse, calling them ‘even more execrable,’ than the same unnatural sexual acts outside of marriage. Again, this is because the sin is not only against nature, but against a Holy Sacrament instituted by Christ himself for the sake of our salvation.

Therefore, unnatural sexual acts do not become permissible when these take place within marriage. Instead, unnatural sexual acts are made even more sinful when these take place within marriage because they offend against both nature and a Sacrament.

The answer of St. Thomas Aquinas:

Notice, in the quote [sic] below, that St. Thomas held sexual sins within marriage to be worse than adultery, because the act occurs within the good of marriage. He did not teach that all sexual acts within marriage are moral, nor did he teach that all sexual acts between a husband and wife are moral.

“And since the man who is too ardent a lover of his wife acts counter to the good of marriage if he use her indecently, although he be not unfaithful, he may in a sense be called an adulterer; and even more so than he that is too ardent a lover of another woman.” (Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 154, article 8).

The phrasing ‘if he use her indecently’ refers to unnatural sexual acts within marriage. This is clear because the good of marriage emphasized by St. Thomas is the procreation of children (Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 154, article 2). St. Thomas could not be referring to natural marital relations when he says ‘if he use her indecently’ because even natural marital relations done with some disorder of desire still retains the unitive and procreative meanings. But unnatural sexual acts lack both meanings, and so they are contrary to the good of marriage. The use of unnatural sexual acts within marriage is therefore worse than adultery.

St. Thomas again condemns this same type of act later in the same question.

“Lastly comes the sin of not observing the right manner of copulation, which is more grievous if the abuse regards the ‘vas’ than if it affects the manner of copulation in respect of other circumstances.” (Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II, Q. 154, article 12).

First, the word ‘vas’ is Latin for vessel, referring to the use of other bodily orifices for sexual acts. If a husband treats his wife lustfully during natural marital relations, he sins. But he commits a more grievous offense, which is called by St. Thomas an abuse, if he sins by committing unnatural sexual acts (i.e. using an unnatural part of the body as a ‘vessel’ for sexual intercourse). Here St. Thomas explicitly (but in discrete language) condemns the sin of unnatural sexual acts within marriage.

Second, it is clear (in the quote from article 8 above) that St. Thomas taught that a married couple is not justified in committing any sexual acts whatsoever within marriage. Otherwise, he would not have taught that a man who is too ardent a lover of his wife commits a sin that is like adultery and yet worse than adultery. Therefore, those who claim that there are no sins for a husband and wife having sexual relations with each other are in error.

Third, neither does St. Thomas even consider the absurd argument that acts which are intrinsically evil and gravely immoral by themselves could become good and moral when combined in some way with natural marital relations open to life. If this were the case, then St. Thomas could not have compared a man who is too ardent a lover of his wife to an adulterer. For if he took the position of certain modern-day commentators, then he would have to say that a husband’s ardent love would be entirely justified, as long as “the semen are not misdirected.” Notice that Saint Thomas takes no such position; he does not sum up the marital act as merely the proper direction of semen, as so many persons erroneously claim today. [...]

[...] consider what the Magisterium teaches about the morality of sexual acts within marriage:

In Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI explicitly considers the idea that a set of sexual acts within marriage would be justifiable as long as some of the acts are procreative:

“Moreover, if one were to apply here the so called principle of totality, could it not be accepted that the intention to have a less prolific but more rationally planned family might transform an action which renders natural processes infertile into a licit and provident control of birth? Could it not be admitted, in other words, that procreative finality applies to the totality of married life rather than to each single act?” (Humanae Vitae, n 3).

This principle of totality is, in essence, what is being proposed by some commentators today, who claim that only one sexual act out of many in the marital bedroom needs to be natural marital relations open to life. They suggest an approach that would justify any arbitrary number and kind of non-procreative and non-unitive sexual acts, as long as these occur as part of a set, or within the same arbitrary time frame, as an act of natural intercourse.

Pope Paul VI rejects this approach:

“The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life. This particular doctrine, often expounded by the magisterium of the Church, is based on the inseparable connection, established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break, between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act.” (Humanae Vitae, n. 11-12).

The unitive significance and the procreative significance are inherent to the very nature of the marital sexual act. Therefore, the unitive and procreative meanings are moral objects, essential to make sexual acts within marriage good by their nature. And their absence makes the moral object evil, by the deprivation of a good required by the will of God for marriage, and the act intrinsically evil, by its very nature. Unnatural sexual acts are non-unitive and non-procreative, therefore these acts are intrinsically evil. [...]

“Neither is it valid to argue, as a justification for sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive, that a lesser evil is to be preferred to a greater one, or that such intercourse would merge with procreative acts of past and future to form a single entity, and so be qualified by exactly the same moral goodness as these. Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good,” it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it — in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general. Consequently, it is a serious error to think that a whole married life of otherwise normal relations can justify sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive and so intrinsically wrong.” (Humanae Vitae, n. 14).

The procreative and unitive sexual acts of past or future cannot be merged to form a single moral entity, such that these intrinsically evil acts would become just as moral as natural marital relations open to life. For the deprivation of the unitive and/or procreative meanings is intrinsically evil. [...]

“But no reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who, in exercising it, deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose, sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious.” (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, n. 54)

Unnatural sexual acts are intrinsically against nature because the conjugal act is primarily directed toward procreation, the begetting of children. Those persons (married or not) who deliberately choose sexual acts deprived of the natural power and purpose of procreation “sin against nature” and commit a shameful and intrinsically evil act. [...]

[...] any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.” (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, n. 55) [...]

For all sexual acts are a deliberate use of the sexual faculty, and all unnatural sexual acts are a deliberate choice of act that are inherently non-procreative. If the Pope had wished to narrow his statements to only contraception, he would not have said “any use whatsoever,” or if he had wished to allow unnatural sexual acts within marriage, he would not have said “any use whatsoever of matrimony.” Instead, he unequivocally proclaimed the Magisterium’s definitive teaching, which is also found in natural law, that each and every marital sexual act must include both the unitive and procreative meanings. This teaching necessarily prohibits the married couple from engaging in any kind of unnatural sexual act (with or without climax), because all such acts lack the procreative and unitive meanings.

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Source: Ronald L. Conte, "Unnatural Sexual Acts as Marital Foreplay," The Reproach of Christ Blog, February 20, 2011, accessed December 9, 2013, http://ronconte.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/unnatural-sexual-acts-as-marital-foreplay/.

Sex Abuse in Different Areas: Statistics, Excerpts, and Highlights

Here's a good article that summarizes the statistics regarding priestly sexual abuse: http://www.pattimaguirearmstrong.com/2013/11/defend-priests-against-bullies.html. The link to the John Jay report in the article doesn't work, but you can find it here: http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/upload/The-Causes-and-Context-of-Sexual-Abuse-of-Minors-by-Catholic-Priests-in-the-United-States-1950-2010.pdf

Some highlights:

1. Catholic priests abuse at a far lower rate than the rest of the male population.
2. Most cases of abuse occurred between the '60s and the '80s as a historical anomaly.
3. The handling of the cases reflects the conclusions of psychology in that era, in which the Church trusted as a legitimate source for direction.
4. Reported sexual abuse in public schools by teachers is 100 times greater than the abuse by priests.
5. Between 1950-2010, 5% of all priests were accused of sexually inappropriate behavior.
6. Of that 5% of accused priests, less than 5% "exhibited behavior consistent with a diagnosis
of pedophilia" (John Jay Report, p. 3).
7. The exaggeration of priestly abuse suggests that priests are held by our culture to a higher standard of conduct than men in secular professions or pastors of other Christian denominations.
8. It is important to reiterate that priests who abused behaved in stark contrast with the teachings of the Church, betraying the Church rather than representing it.

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In accordance with a requirement of President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, in 2002 the Department of Education carried out a study of sexual abuse in the school system.

Hofstra University researcher Charol Shakeshaft looked into the problem, and the first thing that came to her mind when Education Week reported on the study were the daily headlines about the Catholic Church.

"[T]hink the Catholic Church has a problem?" she said. "The physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."

So, in order to better protect children, did media outlets start hounding the worse menace of the school systems, with headlines about a "Nationwide Teacher Molestation Cover-up" and by asking "Are Ed Schools Producing Pedophiles?"

No, they didn't. That treatment was reserved for the Catholic Church, while the greater problem in the schools was ignored altogether.

As the National Catholic Register's reporter Wayne Laugesen points out, the federal report said 422,000 California public-school students would be victims before graduation — a number that dwarfs the state's entire Catholic-school enrollment of 143,000.

Yet, during the first half of 2002, the 61 largest newspapers in California ran nearly 2,000 stories about sexual abuse in Catholic institutions, mostly concerning past allegations. During the same period, those newspapers ran four stories about the federal government's discovery of the much larger — and ongoing — abuse scandal in public schools.

Perhaps John Karr will help change that.

"Could JonBenet Ramsey murder suspect John Mark Karr get a job teaching in your community?" asked USA Today. Not any more, of course; but could a creepy pedophile who isn't all over Fox News get hired? Richard Dangel, a child psychologist in Dallas, told the paper, "Only about 4% of offenders get busted," he says. "The other 96% don't." Which means that background checks won't stop the vast majority of sex offenders. [...]

The 2002 Department of Education report estimated that from 6 percent to 10 percent of all students in public schools would be victims of abuse before graduation — a staggering statistic.


Source: Tom Hoopes, "Has Media Ignored Sex Abuse in Schools?," CBSNews website, August 24, 2006, accessed June 5, 2015, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/has-media-ignored-sex-abuse-in-school/.


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Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg—who is 63 with a long, graying beard—recently sat down with me to explain what he described as a “child-rape assembly line” among sects of fundamentalist Jews. He cleared his throat. “I’m going to be graphic,” he said.

A member of Brooklyn’s Satmar Hasidim fundamentalist branch of Orthodox Judaism, Nuchem designs and repairs mikvahs in compliance with Torah Law. The mikvah is a ritual Jewish bathhouse used for purification. Devout Jews are required to cleanse themselves in the mikvah on a variety of occasions: Women must visit following menstruation, and men have to make an appearance before the High Holidays, such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Many of the devout also purify themselves before and after the act of sex and before the Sabbath.

On a visit to Jerusalem in 2005, Rabbi Rosenberg entered into a mikvah in one of the holiest neighborhoods in the city, Mea She’arim. “I opened a door that entered into a schvitz,” he told me. “Vapors everywhere, I can barely see. My eyes adjust, and I see an old man, my age, long white beard, a holy-looking man, sitting in the vapors. On his lap, facing away from him, is a boy, maybe seven years old. And the old man is having anal sex with this boy.”

Rabbi Rosenberg paused, gathered himself, and went on: “This boy was speared on the man like an animal, like a pig, and the boy was saying nothing. But on his face—fear. The old man [looked at me] without any fear, as if this was common practice. He didn’t stop. I was so angry, I confronted him. He removed the boy from his penis, and I took the boy aside. I told this man, ‘It’s a sin before God, a mishkovzucher. What are you doing to this boy’s soul? You’re destroying this boy!’ He had a sponge on a stick to clean his back, and he hit me across the face with it. ‘How dare you interrupt me!’ he said. I had heard of these things for a long time, but now I had seen.”

The child sex abuse crisis in ultra-Orthodox Judaism, like that in the Catholic Church, has produced its share of shocking headlines in recent years. In New York, and in the prominent Orthodox communities of Israel and London, allegations of child molestation and rape have been rampant. The alleged abusers are schoolteachers, rabbis, fathers, uncles—figures of male authority. The victims, like those of Catholic priests, are mostly boys. Rabbi Rosenberg believes around half of young males in Brooklyn’s Hasidic community—the largest in the United States and one of the largest in the world—have been victims of sexual assault perpetrated by their elders. Ben Hirsch, director of Survivors for Justice, a Brooklyn organization that advocates for Orthodox sex abuse victims, thinks the real number is higher. “From anecdotal evidence, we’re looking at over 50 percent. It has almost become a rite of passage.”

Ultra-Orthodox Jews who speak out about these abuses are ruined and condemned to exile by their own community. Dr. Amy Neustein, a nonfundamentalist Orthodox Jewish sociologist and editor of Tempest in the Temple: Jewish Communities and Child Sex Scandals, told me the story of a series of Hasidic mothers in Brooklyn she got to know who complained that their children were being preyed on by their husbands.

In these cases, the accused men “very quickly and effectively engage the rabbis, the Orthodox politicians, and powerful Orthodox rabbis who donate handsomely to political clubs.” The goal, she told me, is “to excise the mother from the child’s life.” Rabbinical courts cast the mothers aside, and the effects are permanent. The mother is “amputated.” One woman befriended by Dr. Neustein, a music student at a college outside New York, lost contact with all six of her children, including an infant she was breastfeeding at the time of their separation.

Seven years ago, Rabbi Rosenberg started blogging about sex abuse in his community and opened a New York City hotline to field sex abuse complaints. He has posted appeals on YouTube, appeared on CNN, and given speeches across the US, Canada, Israel, and Australia. Today, he is the lone whistleblower among the Satmar. For this he is reviled, slandered, hated, feared. He receives death threats on a regular basis. In Yiddish and Hebrew newspapers, advertisements taken out by the self-described “great rabbis and rabbinical judges of the city of New York” have denounced him as “a stumbling block for the House of Israel,” “a public rebuker and preacher of ethics” who “persists in his rebelliousness” and whose “voice has been heard among many Jewish families, especially young people in their innocence… drawn to listen to his poisonous and revolting speeches.” Leaflets distributed in Williamsburg and Borough Park, the centers of ultra-Orthodoxy in Brooklyn, display his bearded face over the body of a writhing snake. "Corrupt Informer," reads one of the leaflets, followed by the declaration that Rabbi Rosenberg’s “name should rot in hell forever. They should cut him off from all four corners of the earth.”

When Rabbi Rosenberg wants to bathe at a mikvah in Brooklyn to purify himself, none will have him. When he wants to go to synagogue, none will have him. “He is finished in the community, butchered,” said a fellow rabbi who would only talk anonymously. “No one will look at him, and those who will talk to him, they can’t let it be known. The pressure in our community, it’s incredible.”

The powerful men—and it is worth noting that this community is regulated by men only—who govern the world of ultra-Orthodox Judaism would rather their adherents be blind in their faith, their eyes closed to the horrors Rabbi Rosenberg is exposing. Like the Catholic establishment, the rabbinate seeks to cover up the crimes, quiet the victims, protect the abusers, and deflect potential criticism of their institutional practices. Those who speak out are vilified, and the faithful learn to shut their mouths. When the father of the seven-year-old boy whom Rabbi Rosenberg rescued from the Jerusalem bathhouse showed up to collect his son, he couldn’t believe his son had been raped. Trembling, terrified, he whisked his son away to get medical help but was still too scared to raise a formal complaint. According to Ben and Survivors for Justice, “The greatest sin is not the abuse, but talking about the abuse. Kids and parents who step forward to complain are crushed.”

As for Rabbi Rosenberg, when he voiced his concerns to the rabbinate in Israel, he was brought up on charges by the mishmeres hatznuis, the archconservative Orthodox “modesty squad,” which regulates, often through threats of violence, proper moral conduct and dress in the relations between men and women. The modesty squad is a sort of Jewish Taliban. According to Rabbi Rosenberg, the rapist he caught in the act was a member of the modesty squad, which charged him with the unconscionable offense of having previously been seen walking down a street in Jerusalem with a married woman. “But it’s OK to molest children,” he adds.

The abuse and its cover-up are symptoms of wider political dysfunction—or, more precisely, symptoms of socially disastrous political control by religious elites.

“This isn’t a problem about a few aberrant cases or an old-fashioned community reluctant to talk to police about sexual matters,” said Michael Lesher, a practicing Jew who has investigated Orthodox sex abuse and represented abuse victims. “This is about a political economy that links Orthodox Judaism with other fundamentalist creeds and with aspects of right-wing ideologies generally. It’s an economy in which genuine religious values will never really rise to the top, so long as they’re tied to the poisonous priorities that elevate status and power over the basic human needs of the most vulnerable among us.”

Michael, who is completing a book on the topic, noted that the infamous Rabbi Elior Chen, convicted in 2010 in what was arguably Israel’s worst case of serial child abuse, is still defended in public statements by leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis. Among other legal and moral crimes, the rabbi forced his victims to eat feces, claiming that this cruelty was necessary to “purify” the children he abused.

According to Ben, the ultra-Orthodox community has never been as repressive as it is today. The repression, as he describes it, stems from the burden of having too many children. Huge families are encouraged: Every child born to a Hasid is seen as “a finger in the eye of Hitler.” Ben also told me that the average family size among Williamsburg Hasidim is nine, and that some families include more than 15 children.

Families saddled with an increasing number of children soon enter into a cycle of poverty. There is simultaneously an extreme separation of the sexes, which is unprecedented in the history of the Hasidim. There is limited general education, to the point that most men in the community are educated only to the third grade, and receive absolutely no sexual education. No secular newspapers are allowed, and internet access is forbidden. “The men in the community are undereducated by design,” Ben said. “You have a community that has been infantilized. They have been trained not to think. It’s a sort of totalitarian control.”

The rabbis, dominating an ignorant and largely poverty-stricken flock, determine the fate of every individual in the community. Nothing is done without the consent of the rabbinical establishment. A man wants to buy a new car—he goes to the rabbi for counsel. A man wants to marry—the rabbi tells him whether or not he should marry a particular bride. As for the women, they don’t get to ask the rabbi anything. Their place is beneath contempt.

Michael told me that current Orthodox leadership, accruing wealth from the tithes of subservient followers, is “drifting to the right, politically as well as religiously.” Many rabbis in New York City have taken up the banner of neoliberalism. “Every English-language Orthodox publication I know embraced Romney during the 2012 elections, decried national health insurance, blamed liberals for bribing the lower classes,” he said. “In Orthodox society, just as in America at large, the financial mismatch between the elite and the rest of us is ominously large.”

Michael also notes that the problem is not confined to the extremists. “The same patterns of victim-blaming, covering up, idealizing the rabbis so that cover-ups aren’t even acknowledged, are found all across the spectrum of Orthodoxy,” he told me. “The Orthodox left was shamefully slow to react to Rabbi Baruch Lanner’s abuse or to the similar case of Rabbi Mordechai Elon.” Rabbi Lanner, a former New Jersey yeshiva high school principal, was found guilty in 2000 of sexually abusing dozens of teenage students over the decades of his tenure. Rabbi Elon, who had publicly denounced homosexuality, was convicted last August on two counts of forcible sexual assault on a male minor, following several years of reports of his abuse of young boys.

“I have children come to me with their parents, and the blood is coming out of the anus,” Rabbi Rosenberg told me when we met. “These are zombies for life. What are we to do?”

This of course is the key question, and no answers are forthcoming. Michael holds out little hope that the situation will change. “If Orthodox institutions continue on their current trajectory,” he said, “I’d say things could get worse before they get better.”

A few weeks after our interview, Rabbi Rosenberg was walking through the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn when an unidentified man rushed up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder, and threw a cup of bleach in his face. He went to the hospital with facial burns and was temporarily blinded. Such is the measure of justice among the Satmar that a once-respected rabbi, now amputated from the community, should find himself chemically burned on a street in a neighborhood considered holy.

Later Rabbi Rosenberg told me a story of being surrounded by young boys in Williamsburg. The boys cursed him, laughed at him, threatened him, and spat at him. He wondered how many of them would end up molested.

Source: Christopher Ketcham, "The Child-Rape Assembly Line," Vice website, November 12, 2013, accessed June 5, 2015, http://www.vice.com/read/the-child-rape-assembly-line-0000141-v20n11.

A website that covers Jewish Rabbi child molesters: http://iamthewitness.com/listeners/Jewish.child.molesters.that.are.never.on.the.NEWS-WHY.htm

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[...] I referred to a Newsweek article which said that “priests seem to abuse children at the same rate as everyone else”.

The fact is, however, that not only is the Catholic Church NOT an endemically paedophile organisation [sic], the evidence is now emerging that, in fact, even Newsweek is exaggerating: it’s not that “priests… abuse children at the same rate as everyone else”: actually, according to Dr Thomas Plante of Stanford University and Santa Clara University, “available research suggests that approximately two to five per cent of priests have had a sexual experience with a minor” which “is lower than the general adult male population” – in which the percentage of those who have interfered with minors “is best estimated to be closer to eight per cent”. In other words, children who have anything to do with priests are between 1.6 and four times LESS likely to be abused by them than by anyone else.

“When,” asks the blog La Salette Journey, giving these and other details, “will the media acknowledge that the sexual abuse of children is not a ‘Catholic problem’?” The fact is, suggests the writer, Paul Anthony Melanson, that “the media are not so much concerned with the welfare of children as they are with unfairly portraying the abuse of children as a ‘crisis in the Church’ ”. For example, the state school system in the US has a considerably higher rate of sexual abuse than the Catholic Church: according to a report prepared for the US Department of Education entitled Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature, “9.6 per cent of all students in grades 8 to 11 report… educator sexual misconduct that was unwanted.” This report has been virtually ignored by the media.

But the penny is just beginning to drop. An article by Jim Dwyer in the New York Times reported (April 27) that the New York State legislature is now addressing the fact that child abuse is not only a problem for the Church, but for the whole of society. “Should it be possible,” asks Dwyer “… to sue the city of New York for sexual abuse by public school teachers that happened decades ago? How about doctors or hospital attendants? Police officers? Welfare workers? Playground attendants? … To date, New York City has been publicly silent…. but sees the possibility of enormous expenses.”

Well, join the club, New York City. As Dwyer’s article points out: “Since 2004, Catholic dioceses nationwide have paid $1.4bn to settle claims of abuse, many from acts from the 1970s or earlier… Yet [he continues] there is little evidence to show there is more sexual abuse among Catholic priests than among clergy from other denominations, or, for that matter, among people from other walks of life.”

That’s the bottom line. This is a problem we share with everyone, though actually we are less guilty of it than society as a whole and are doing a lot better in acknowledging such child abuse as does exist. We need to get that, and the evidence for it, firmly into our heads. We have a battle ahead: we all need to be prepared for it.


Statistical highlights:

• Children are 1.6 - 4 times less likely to be sexually abused by priests than by anyone else (source: Dr. Thomas Plante; cf also http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/plante.html)
• 9.6% of all children between grades 8 to 11 report unwanted sexual misconduct (US Dept. of Education, "Educator Sexual Misconduct").

Source: William Oddie, "Now We Have Real Evidence – Sexual Abuse Is Not a ‘Catholic Problem’," Catholic Herald website, August 9, 2010, accessed June 5, 2015, http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2010/08/09/now-we-have-real-evidence-%E2%80%93-sexual-abuse-is-not-a-%E2%80%98catholic-problem%E2%80%99/.

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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 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. "I can tell you without hesitation that we have seen cases in many religious settings, from traveling evangelists to mainstream ministers to rabbis and others."

Since the mid-1980s, insurance companies have offered sexual misconduct coverage as a rider on liability insurance, and their own studies indicate that Catholic churches are not higher risk than other congregations. Insurance companies that cover all denominations, such as Guide One Center for Risk Management, which has more than 40,000 church clients, does not charge Catholic churches higher premiums. "We don't see vast difference in the incidence rate between one denomination and another," says Sarah Buckley, assistant vice president of corporate communications. "It's pretty even across the denominations." It's been that way for decades. While the company saw an uptick in these claims by all types of churches around the time of the 2002 U.S. Catholic sex-abuse scandal, Eric Spacick, Guide One's senior church-risk manager, says "it's been pretty steady since." On average, the company says 80 percent of the sexual misconduct claims they get from all denominations involve sexual abuse of children. As a result, the more children's programs a church has, the more expensive its insurance, officials at Guide One said.

The only hard data that has been made public by any denomination comes from John Jay College's study of Catholic priests, which was authorized and is being paid for by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops following the public outcry over the 2002 scandals. Limiting their study to plausible accusations made between 1950 and 1992, John Jay researchers reported that about 4 percent of the 110,000 priests active during those years had been accused of sexual misconduct involving children. Specifically, 4,392 complaints (ranging from "sexual talk" to rape) were made against priests by 10,667 victims. (Reports made after 2002, including those of incidents that occurred years earlier, are released as part of the church's annual audits.)

Experts disagree on the rate of sexual abuse among the general American male population, but Allen says a conservative estimate is one in 10. Margaret Leland Smith, a researcher at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, says her review of the numbers indicates it's closer to one in 5. But in either case, the rate of abuse by Catholic priests is not higher than these national estimates. The public also doesn't realize how "profoundly prevalent" child sexual abuse is, adds Smith. Even those numbers may be low; research suggests that only a third of abuse cases are ever reported (making it the most underreported crime). "However you slice it, it's a very common experience," Smith says.

Most child abusers have one thing in common, and it's not piety—it's preexisting relationships with their victims. That includes priests and ministers and rabbis, of course, but also family members, friends, neighbors, teachers, coaches, scout leaders, youth-group volunteers, and doctors. According to federal studies, three quarters of abuse occurs at the hands of family members or others in the victim's "circle of trust." "The fundamental premise here is that those who abuse children overwhelmingly seek out situations where they have easy and legitimate access to children," he said. "These kinds of positions offer a kind of cover for these offenders."

Priests may also appear more likely to molest children because cases of abuse come to light in huge waves. One reason is delayed reporting: less than 13 percent of victims abused between 1960 and 1980, for example, lodged a complaint in the same year as the assault. Two thirds filed their complaints after 1992, and half of those were made between 2002 and 2003 alone. "Offenders tend to be manipulative, often persuading children to believe that this is their fault," said Allen. "As a result, the children tend to keep it to themselves. There are countless victims who thought they were the only one." So what looks like high concentrations of abuse may simply reflect long and diffuse patterns of abuse that mirror those among all males.

Another reason is that the church has historically been bad at punishing (or preventing) molesters, so that many cases might come to light when just one priest is finally exposed. A single predator priest with ongoing access to children might be responsible for an immense raft of abuse cases. (Marie Fortune of the Faith Trust Institute, which focuses on clerical-abuse issues, says Roman Catholics tend "to have many more schools and other programs that involve children." "Plenty of other congregations have these problems, for instance, if they have a youth ministry.") That helps explain the 200 children who were abused at a school for the deaf. It didn't happen because the school was full of rapists; it happened because one man was never stopped. Overall, the John Jay study found that 149 priests were responsible for more than 25,000 cases of abuse over the 52-year period studied.

Allen suggests a final reason we hear so much more about Catholic abuse than transgressions in other religions: its sheer size. It's the second largest single denomination in the world (behind Islam) and the biggest in the United States. (Fifty-one percent of all American adults are Protestant, but they belong to hundreds of different denominations.) "When you consider the per capita data," says Allen, "I don't think they have a larger incidence than other faiths."


 http://www.newsweek.com/priests-commit-no-more-abuse-other-males-70625