Wounded Witness: A Different Perspective on the Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis

By Michel Therrien, STL, STD

The clergy sex abuse scandal has, without question, been devastating to the life of the Church, especially for all the victims and their families. In all the years I have followed the analysis of the clergy scandal and the justifiable outrage over the cover-ups, several questions never seem to come up. How many of the priests who abused were themselves abused when they were young? And, by whom and under what circumstances? This type of abuse occurs most often in the home and is generational by nature. Is there any way to explain why this problem was so pervasive in the Church during the mid to late twentieth century other than the reasons typically given?

What I wish to explore in this essay is where we might look to grasp the larger context of the clergy abuse scandal during its height. What I am putting forward here is a thesis in need of much more study, so my following reflections are meant to be tentative and exploratory. I would recommend situating the clerical abuse crisis within the following historical context—namely, the generational effects of the two world wars on men during what might be described as the collapse of the “modern” age.

Let me begin by stating that sexual impropriety among clergy is not a recent issue. It dates back far beyond the past 75–100 years. St. Catherine of Siena openly addresses it in her Dialogues (no. 124). More recent in the Church, perhaps, is the sexual abuse of minors. The victims were mostly teenage boys, and the abusers, by and large, were homosexual men.¹ Some have pointed out the disproportionately high number of homosexual men within the priesthood and episcopacy at this time compared to the general population. However, this fact does not adequately explain the crisis. Most homosexual men do not abuse minors. Others have thus tried to downplay this reality by focusing rather upon the predation of minors. I would agree that we need to explore this reality more deeply. Yet describing the clergy abuse crisis as the predation of minors isn’t all that helpful either, since it offers merely a description of the problem and not an explanation for it. We need context for clarity.

The predation of minors is an important factor, however, because this type of abuse was not only a clergy problem. At the height of the clergy abuse scandal, every institution was experiencing a similar crisis of the sexual abuse of minors and its cover-up, although this is not often discussed.² I sometimes wonder if people mistakenly believe that the predation of minors by men in authority is only a Catholic problem. Those who blame the problem on a celibate clergy seem to hold this view, even though there’s no evidence for such a correlation. While it is especially scandalous that the Church was affected by this type of abuse, it’s naive to think that the Church was immune from what every other institution was experiencing at the time. So, what was happening more broadly?

Modern Western civilization was recovering from the decimation of World War I and II. Yet this fact remains unexplored as an explanation of the societal problem of child abuse more generally at that time. War can initiate a crisis of masculinity and fatherhood, eroding the male psyche and leaving long-term scars on family life. War can psychologically devastate men, families, and the very masculine fabric of a nation. Some soldiers might turn to illicit sex, substance abuse, and physical abuse as ways to cope with war trauma. Society must also recover from the loss of so many of its young men.

Furthermore, war kills men in disproportionate numbers, leaving women and children vulnerable to predation. For their part, combat veterans who return to families are burdened by the trauma of their experience. Unless they find healthy ways to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder (a condition only recently recognized and treated), the destructive impact persists for generations. To the point, the two world wars might provide some necessary context for better understanding why the clergy sexual abuse crisis occurred during the mid-to-late twentieth century. One of the costs of the Great Wars might well have been an increase in domestic abuse, which in turn would have had a noticeable effect on church life.

Yet, other factors may have contributed to the conditions for the clergy abuse scandal as well. The first of these is the Sexual Revolution. Following the devastating impact of the wars, it’s not surprising that the middle part of the twentieth century saw a noticeable normalization of sexual impropriety. Many prominent voices called for acceptance of all kinds of sexual behavior, with some even advocating for the normalization of pedophilia.³ The wars created conditions where sexual promiscuity, infidelity, and domestic abuse could become far more prevalent realities that eventually came out of the closet—so to speak. Abuse would likely have affected the children raised in the post-war period and their psycho-sexual development. The generational abuse resulting from the wars might thus explain the acceptance and normalization of the new sexual ethic emerging from the Sexual Revolution among the baby boomer generation. We see this reflected in the analysis of the John Jay Report, which found that “men ordained in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s did not generally abuse before the 1960s or 1970s. Men ordained in the 1960s and the early 1970s engaged in abusive behavior much more quickly after their entrance into ministry.”⁴

A further consideration beyond the wars and the Sexual Revolution is the excessively formal and legalistic ethos of the modern period, which collapsed in the 1960’s. Domestic abuse was likely suppressed quite aggressively beneath the veil of social propriety. In the decade of the 1960’s this social contradiction was finally exposed. As I explain throughout my book, Wounded Witness: Reclaiming the Church’s Unity in a Time of Crisis, I do not believe the 1960’s was merely an adolescent rebellion against Christian morality. It was a revolution against the hypocrisy of a deeply moralistic society that covered up both institutional and domestic abuse, and a variety of hypocrisies resulting from a decadent form of Christianity. I would suggest that the liberal explosion of the Freudian and feminist revolutions cannot be adequately explained otherwise. Unfortunately, the Sexual Revolution took a profoundly misguided direction, creating new problems and ultimately failing to address the problems they purportedly meant to solve.

As is evident today, the Sexual Revolution has not eradicated the tragedy of abuse or what some reference by the pejorative term, toxic masculinity. Instead, it has normalized sexual deviation and, in doing so, further perpetuated the problem. Just think of the explosive rise in pornography, sex work, and trafficking, for example. Nevertheless, we must bear in mind that any variant of critical theory is particularly appealing to those who have suffered abuse, especially by influential male figures, such as fathers—which is why I also suspect that domestic abuse is one of the hidden gremlins behind our current identity politics and the woke agenda. The present disdain for masculinity is deeply troubling and perhaps indicative of the wider historical problem I’m sketching here, insofar as hatred for masculinity is often traceable back to the male abuse of minors and women, whether it’s physical, sexual, or emotional.

To return to my original thesis, then, when we take the longer view of history and recognize that generations of war can deeply wound masculine identity and combine this with modern ethical formalism, which created ideal conditions for the cover-up of abuse, we may find the most relevant context for understanding the clergy sex abuse crisis. Tragically, the West’s legacy of war has come at a tremendous cost for the Church. While we might be tempted to assume that the problems arising from the Sexual Revolution ultimately created the clergy sex abuse scandal, it is more likely that these problems are only symptomatic of the hidden crisis that preceded it.⁵

While in my opinion the combined social reality of world wars, ethical formalism, and the Sexual Revolution constitute the most contributing social factors to the clergy sex abuse crisis, I need to mention a couple of others that help to round out the genealogy of the clergy crisis. First, the culture of vocation during the pre-conciliar years, especially within the conditions of early twentieth-century Catholicism, did not encourage mature freedom or an adult response to the call to priesthood and religious life. I also address this issue in my book, Wounded Witness.

At this time, some parents applied great pressure to their children, particularly boys, to consider a priestly or religious vocation at a young age. Families took great pride in sending a son to a seminary, especially if they saw him having a suitable disposition for the priesthood. But could it be that a disproportionate number of these boys at this time suffered from deep psychological wounds due to troubled family life or domestic abuse during the period of the wars? And what better place for these wounds to fester than within the closed environment of a seminary, especially at a time when proper human formation was not part of seminary life. This leads to a final potential contributing context for the clergy sex abuse scandal—the minor seminary system.

The practice of sending boys to minor seminaries created an environment potentially conducive for grooming and the sexual predation of minors. Puberty is a vulnerable age, and separating boys from their families of origin and appropriate socialization with girls potentially increases this vulnerability. Predators often target those they see as vulnerable, and the Church environment at this time, with its institutional legitimacy, provided safe cover for this abuse to take place over multiple generations. The same dynamics can be found in orphanages, boarding schools, and other institutional settings for children. It could be that some clergy abusers were themselves abused for the first time while in minor seminary. I am not suggesting that the minor seminary system was a cause of the overall sex abuse crisis. The John Jay Report does not support this.⁶ Yet it was a suitable environment where more vulnerable youth might have been subject to abuse and its cover-up.

The clergy sex abuse crisis is undoubtedly the product of many social factors. What I am suggesting as the context for this crisis is perhaps just a perfect storm: the crisis of a wounded masculinity from two world wars, the collapsing ethical formalism of the modern age through a sexual revolution that attempted to liberate wounded youth from the tragedy of domestic abuse in post-war period, as well as a seminary system populated by a disproportionate number of abused and abusing boys and men. Together, these factors might help explain the increased predation of minors among Catholic clergy in the mid-to-late twentieth century.

To circle back to my original question, then, what we need now is to know how many of the clergy abusers were themselves abused as children before they all pass on. The John Jay Report found that many clergy abusers were, in fact, molested themselves as children, and states “that men who were sexually abused themselves when they were minors were significantly more likely to commit acts of abuse than those who were not abused.”⁷ But if my thesis provides any explanatory power, we also need to know who their abusers were and the circumstances of their abuse. Can we find any correlation between abuse and the great wars of the twentieth century? Did the Sexual Revelation expose a society-wide crisis of abuse that followed the wars and overthrow an ethical environment rife with hypocrisy and conducive to cover-ups? Since the John Jay Report found that “more abusers were educated in seminaries in the 1940s and 1950s than at any other time period,”⁸ it’s plausible.

We ought to know these things. It’s never enough to be outraged by the scandals now that they’ve been drawn out of the shadows and into the light. We need to know why they occurred so that we can truly heal. Now that all the details of the abuses have been exposed, we need to approach the clergy sex abuse scandals with a deeper curiosity about its broader context. We need a clear understanding of how to break the generational cycle of abuse.

As we look to a future beyond the clergy sex abuse scandal, we must strengthen and heal masculinity in our culture and the priesthood. We have the exemplar of manhood in the person of Jesus Christ, who himself is the image of a tender Father who both protects and cares for his bride and his beloved children. Yet we will not be able to heal unless we bring the mercy of Jesus to bear on the entire reality of the scandal. If abuse is generational—and there is evidence to suggest it is⁹—the abusers in every generation need God’s mercy also. And let us be more resolved than ever to echo with Pope St. John Paul II—that war is a total loss for humanity! Perhaps the clergy sex abuse crisis is just one more reason why this declaration is so prophetic.

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Michel Therrien is the President and CEO of Preambula Group. He is the author of The Catholic Faith Explained (Sophia Institute Press, 2020) and Wounded Witness: Reclaiming the Church’s Unity in a Time of Crisis (Three Keys Publishing, 2023).

1. The John Jay Report found that 81% of the victims were male. See John Jay College Research Team, “The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010”, p 9, (hereafter John Jay Report).

2. The John Jay study estimated that 4% of Catholic clerics were credibly accused (see “The Nature and Scope of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States 1950–2002,” p 27, and while estimates of educator abuse vary, some studies suggest 5% of teachers have committed sexual abuse (see Shakeshaft’s “Sexual abuse of students by school personnel,” p3). Though comparable data isn’t available for organizations like Boy Scouts of America, or decentralized institutions like nurseries and day care centers, many credible accusations have been lodged against them as well. Such data is meant to provide context, but it in no way minimizes the evil of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, which is particularly heinous given the added spiritual component.

3. For instance, John Money and Alfred Kinsey (see, respectively, Sister Prudence Allen’s chapter in The Complementarity of Women and Menand Benjamin Wiker’s 10 Books that Screwed Up the World).

4. John Jay Report, p3.

5. Though estimates vary, scholars generally agree the rise in pre-marital sex began decades before the Sexual Revolution. See, for instance, “Premarital Sex in 20th-Century America” or Lawrence L. Wu et al “Reexamining trends in premarital sex in the United States,” Demographic Research, February 2018, 38(1):727–736.

6. John Jay Report, p4.

7. John Jay Report, p66 and p74.

8. John Jay Report, p118.

9. See, for instance, Alan J. Drury, Michael J. Elbert, and Matt DeLisi, “Childhood sexual abuse is significantly associated with subsequent sexual offending: New evidence among federal correctional clients,” Child Abuse & Neglect, Volume 95, 2019.