A Catholic Church study finds neither Celibacy or Homosexuality is to Blame for Child Abuse

A study on the sexual abuse within the American Catholic Church has some interesting and clarifying news. The results show that the celibate or homosexual priests are no more likely to abuse children than the straight priests.

Discounting a number of theories that have been previously put forward to explain abuse by priests, the researchers conducting the study found only a small minority of abusive priests met the clinical definition of paedophiles.

Instead, researchers concluded priests were under stress and unprepared to deal with the social and sexual turmoil of the 1960s and '70s.

Poor monitoring of men working with children also contributed to the child abuse epidemic, according to the report, which was commissioned by America's Catholic bishops.

For the report, researchers were given unlimited access to the medical and psychological records of priests alleged to have been involved in child sex crimes, including the results of psycho-sexual testing.

This study confirmed that researchers can't identify abusive priests in advance


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