Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
No Silver Bullet
There is one thing that laity and Church officials agree upoll:
they arc upset about children being sexually abused by Church
ministers and they 'vant it stopped. Parishioners and Church lead-
ers alike have been devastated by the news of the sexual abuse of
children by clergy. Thousands of children's lives have been marred.
T he credibility of the Church and its leadership has been hurt.
Both parents and Church leaders ask, "Is there not some 'vay
to identify pedophilic adults before they abuse our children?"
Church officials have earnestly sought a "silver-bullet" that
would take care of this problem onc.c and for aJJ. They have be-
sought mental health professionals for a foolproof psychological
screen to \veed o ut potential molesters.
In response, one religious order's committee on sexual abuse
suggested the use of polygraph tests and penile plethysmogra·
pbies for every niale candidate for their religious life. If imple-
mented , an aspirant to a re.ligious order \VOuld be asked a series
of questions about sexual orientation and about past sexual be-
havior while connected to a lie detector.
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Red Flagt for Q1ild Sexr111l Abuse 65
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Second, aspirants \vould be given a penile plethysmography.
Such tests measure penile tumescence \vhile the person is being
sho'vn sexually provocative slides of both genders and persons of
varying ages. This assessment instrument is a biological \vay of
measuring the strength of subjects' sexual attraction to female
and male adults, adolescents, and children.
Indeed, polygraph tests and plethysmograpbies are sometimes
used in assessments of persons charged with sexual, criminal of-
fenses. But to use them on every person desirous of foUo,ving a
religious vocation or ministering in our churches is clearly un-
ethical from a psychological perspective as weU as being pas-
torally imprudent and insensitive. I suspect such use is illegal as
\veU. These tests are highly invasive of one's privacy and arc ar-
guably not justified for widespread screening purposes.
There has been a search for less invasive testing of sexual
arousal to minors. Other screening procedures similar to the
plethysmography, such as the Abel Screen, are becoming avail-
able. Ho,vever, the ase of these tests for the widespread screen-
ing of candidates poses many of the same ethical problems c.ited
above. They are too invasive of one's privacy to be used in gen-
eral screening and the scientific validity of some of these tests re-
mains to be firmly established.
Currently, there is no assessment tool available that is scientifi-
caUy sound enough and sufficiently respective of one's privacy to
be used as a general candidate screening tool for potential child
sexual abuse.rs. It is unlikely that such tools \vill be available for a
long ti.me. There is no silver bullet.
An Impenetrable Denial
Screening for sexual attraction to minors, both for pedophilia
(attraction to prepubescent minors) and epbebophilia (attraction
to postpubescent minors) is difficult, even for experienced psy-
chologists who \VOrk regularly with sex offenders. Most often,
adults afflicted with deviant sexual interests are largely indistin-
guishable from their peers . . . at least on the surface.
When incervie,ving adults \vith a sexual attraction co minors,
they look "normal." They are often \veil-groomed and repor t
fe,v, if any, distre.ssing sympco1ns. They are usually not excessively
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66 A Tragic Gt·acc: The Catholic Ch14rch and 01ild Sex1111l A b1tse
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70 A Tragic Grace: T11e Catholic Church and Child Se.:a1al Abuse
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72 A Tragic Grace: The Catholic Cl111rch a11d Cl1ild ~'1111l Abuse
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78 A Tragic Grace: Tl!e Catholic CIJ11rc/J and Child SeX1tnl Abuse