For more information, contact: Elizabeth Johnson at media@ruthinstitute.org.
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, president of the Ruth Institute, said most coverage of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report on Clerical Sex Abuse overlooks significant facts. The Institute’s publication, “Questions and Answers on The Clerical Sex Abuse Scandal” puts the recent findings by a Pennsylvania grand jury on clerical sex abuse in proper perspective.
Dr. Morse stated, “The Ruth Institute has utmost sympathy for the victims of clerical predation, and revulsion at those who covered up the crimes. We encourage anyone who has been abused to come forward.”
At the same time, she noted that the Ruth Institute report discloses important facts sometimes overlooked or ignored by the media:
- Some news stories give the impression that “sexual orientation” played no role in past or current clergy abuse scandals. However, two studies by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) in 2004 and 2011 found that over 80% of those abused were victims of male-on-male predation by priests against under-age (pre-teen and teenaged) boys. This pattern of male-on-male predation continues in recent revelation of abuse of seminarians and is also illustrated in many of the cases in the Pennsylvania Grand Jury’s report.
- There has been an active homosexual subculture in the Catholic Church, which operates in seminaries and dioceses. In a 2002 survey of almost 2,000 Catholic priests by the Los Angles Times, 44% of respondents confirmed the existence of this subculture. This subculture has contributed to the patterns of abuse in the Church.
- These findings actually affirm official Catholic teaching. Contrary to the claims of the Sexual Revolution, sexual self-mastery is possible, and necessary for a good life.
Fr. Paul Sullins, Ph.D., the author of “Questions and Answers on the Clerical Sex Abuse Scandal,” is a retired Professor of Sociology at the Catholic University of America, and currently Senior Research Associate at the Ruth Institute. Dr. Morse
has spent decades working with survivors of the Sexual Revolution and is the author of the forthcoming book, The Sexual State.
Fr. Sullins’ full report may be accessed here.
