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CLERGY-RELIGIONS
Apr-1-2002 (880 words) xxxn
Catholic Church
not only religion facing abuse problems, expert
says
By Michelle Laque Johnson
Catholic News
Service
PHILADELPHIA (CNS) -- Although
Catholic priests may be getting the most publicity about
allegations of sexual abuse of minors, they are far from
the only clergy guilty of such misconduct, according to
a professor of history and religious studies at
Pennsylvania State University.
"You name me a
denomination and I'll give you a case," Philip Jenkins
told The Catholic Standard & Times, Philadelphia
archdiocesan newspaper. "Some (denominations) with huge
problems include Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses,
Buddhists, Jews, Baptists, Pentecostals, Episcopalians
-- you name them."
Jenkins' 15 books include
"Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary
Crisis," published in 1996 by Oxford University
Press.
One of the most extreme cases of clergy
sex abuse in U.S. history involved a Pentecostal
minister named Tony Leyva, who molested several hundred
boys in the 1980s, Jenkins said. But few Americans have
heard of Leyva, he added, while some molesters who are
former Catholic priests have become household
names.
Jenkins attributes that not to
anti-Catholicism, but to various groups within the
Catholic Church who have agendas unrelated to the sexual
abuse scandal.
"In the 1980s, as cases came to
light, it was very often Catholic factions themselves
who made this out to be a Catholic issue," he said.
"Liberals within the church said, 'See, this is a
dreadful problem. It shows what happens when you don't
have women priests.' Conservatives said, 'This shows
what happens when you have gay priests.' This was
adopted by the secular press."
Jenkins said that
although the term "pedophile priests" came into usage in
the mid-1980s, the problem should have more properly
been called "pedophile pastors."
The "pedophile
priests" phrase "defines the issue and makes it far more
limited than it really is," he added. "In fact, most of
the clergy who misbehave are not priests.
"My
view is there is no evidence that Catholic clergy offend
at a higher or lower rate than other clergy or than
nonclergy that deal with children," Jenkins said.
"There's no evidence either way. If somebody says,
'Well, it's obvious, they do,' I say, 'Fine, give me the
evidence,' and the evidence isn't
there."
Patricia Kelly of Kelly Counseling and
Consulting in Glen Mills, Pa., agrees that other
denominations have at least as high an incidence of
sexual misconduct problems as the Catholic
Church.
A number of years ago, Kelly said, she
participated in a treatment program for clergy with sex
abuse problems. "Most of the clergy that were there were
not Catholic clergy," she said. "They were Protestant
clergy. Most clergy that abuse are ministers, but the
(Catholic) Church is sexy. It sells
papers."
Writing in the March 3 issue of the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jenkins cited an unnamed
Anglican diocese in Canada that "is currently on the
verge of bankruptcy as a result of massive lawsuits
caused by decades of systematic abuse."
That case
refutes the argument that the sex abuse problem stems
from the practice of celibacy, he said, since "the
Anglican Church does not demand celibacy of its
clergy."
In the United States, a $1.2 million
judgment in 1991 against the Episcopal Diocese of
Colorado in a sexual misconduct case brought by a woman
led the Church Insurance Co., which insures Episcopal
dioceses, to mandate certain safeguards that are
considered among the strictest in the country.
In
addition to publishing a sexual misconduct policy and
procedures manual and requiring background checks for
all clergy, employees and volunteers who regularly
supervise youth activities, the Episcopal policy
mandates four hours of child sexual abuse awareness
training and four hours of training on issues of sexual
harassment in the workplace and sexual exploitation in
pastoral relationships.
"Church Insurance gave us
that extra nudge and said we had to do something because
they wouldn't be able to sustain (these awards),"
Beverly Factor, sexual misconduct officer for the
Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, told The Los Angeles
Times.
Jenkins said "a bold and thorough
self-study" of clergy misconduct was done by the
Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago in the early 1990s. It
looked at every priest who had served in the archdiocese
for the past 40 years -- some 2,200 individuals -- and
"reopened every internal complaint ever made against
these men."
"The standard of evidence applied was
not legal proof that would stand up in a court of law,
but just the consensus that a particular charge was
probably justified," he wrote. "By this low standard,
the survey found that about 40 priests -- about 1.8
percent of the whole -- were probably guilty of
misconduct with minors at some point in their
careers.
"Put another way, no evidence existed
against about 98 percent of parish clergy, the
overwhelming majority of the group," he added.
In
the Post-Gazette article, Jenkins said he is "in no
sense soft on the issue of child abuse" and "cannot be
called a Catholic apologist, since I am not even a
Catholic."
"But I am worried that justified anger
over a few awful cases might be turned into ill-focused
attacks against innocent clergy," he wrote. "The story
of clerical misconduct is bad enough without it turning
into an unjustifiable outbreak of religious bigotry
against the Catholic Church."
- -
-
Contributing to this article was Nancy Frazier
O'Brien in Washington.
END
Copyright (c) 2002 Catholic News Service/U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise
distributed, including but not limited to such means as
framing or any other digital copying or distribution
method, in whole or in part without the prior written
authority of Catholic News Service. | | | |
