Rolling Stone examines the Catholic Church’s secret sex crime files
The September 15, 2011 edition of Rolling Stone shines a light on the inner-workings of the leadership of the Catholic Church, centering on an ongoing criminal case in Philadelphia involving five allegedly sexual predators (for priests and a Catholic school teacher). This is a well researched and well-written article by Sabrina Rubin Erdely. The article is filled with disturbing anecdotes and statistics. For instance,
- The US conference of Catholic Bishops funded a study that lowered the number of clergy classified as pedophiles by redefining puberty as beginning at age 10
- "Seminary is a form of military-style indoctrination, molding meant his think institutionally, not individually it's like a brainwashing, almost [states a former seminarian]"
- According to a 1990 psychological study, "only half of all priests adhere to their vows of celibacy."
- Another study ("The Catholic Priest in the United States: Psychological Investigations") found "that three fourths of all American priests were psychologically and emotionally underdeveloped, or even mal-developed." The attitudes of these grown men toward sex, the study concluded "were on par with those of teenagers or even preteens."