Pope Given Priests ‘Sex Time Bomb’ Warning 30 Years Ago

by Roger Dobson and Maurice Chittenden in The Sunday Times, Dec. 22, 2002

The present Pope was among several Catholic bishops warned in a secret report more than 30 years ago that the church faced a potential “psychosexual” time bomb in the priesthood.

The report, which foreshadows the scandals over sexual abuse of children which have erupted in the church in recent years, was prepared for a synod of bishops at the Vatican in 1971. Its authors estimated that a quarter of clerics had psychiatric difficulties and most were emotionally immature.

Those at the synod included John Paul II, then Archbishop of Cracow, and the late Cardinal John Heenan, then Archbishop of Westminster and Catholic primate of Britain.

Lawyers representing alleged victims of child abuse by priests in Britain and America are studying the unpublished report by Dr Conrad Baars, a Dutch-born Catholic psychiatrist from Minnesota, based on the records of 1,500 priests treated for mental problems. Baars reported that “psychosexual immaturity expressed in heterosexual or homosexual activity was encountered often. Virtually all of these priests were . . . suffering from a severe to moderate frustration neurosis”.

The report, The Role of the Church in the Causation, Treatment and Prevention of the Crisis in the Priesthood, estimated that less than 15% of all priests in western Europe and North America were emotionally fully developed. Of the rest, 20-25% had serious psychiatric difficulties that often showed themselves in alcoholism; 60-70% suffered from lesser degrees of emotional immaturity.

Baars made 10 recommendations, including better vetting of applicants to the priesthood. None were implemented. Baars died in 1981.

“It was hugely prophetic. The description it gives of underdeveloped priests closely resembles the profile of priests who have sexually abused children and adolescents. Unfortunately those to whom it was presented did not heed it at all,” said Tom Doyle, an ecclesiastical lawyer and US air force chaplain.

Doyle has produced a history of clerical sexual abuse which estimates that over the past 15 years there have been 200 trials and 1,800 civil suits involving alleged sexual abuse by priests in America. Doyle, who has investigated many cases in Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, has described Dublin as one of the worst cities in the world for covering up clerical child abuse.

Peter Garsden, a solicitor and vice-president of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, said: “If the Catholic church saw the writing on the wall in 1971 and ignored it and didn’t provide counselling it is tantamount to bad practice and maladministration which will be the foundation for any action in negligence. It seems to be a highly damaging report.”

David Pearson, director of the London-based Churches’ Child Protection Advisory Service which has carried out 4,000 individual checks on criminal records for churches in Britain, said the report would have been “ground-breaking” in 1971.

He added: “It is about time the church stopped making excuses and started to address the issue of the real pain caused to the victims.”

On Friday it was announced that the Irish Catholic Church’s Independent Commission on Child Sex Abuse is to be disbanded in light of the government’s plan to set up a wider inquiry.