"Blame Woodstock" Pedophile Priest Report redefines "prepubescent" so things don't look so bad.

[yellowcanine]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/us/18bishops.html?_r=1

Church Report Cites Social Tumult in Priest Scandals

A five-year study commissioned by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to provide a definitive answer to what caused the church’s sexual abuse crisis has concluded that neither the all-male celibate priesthood nor homosexuality were to blame.

Instead, the report says, the abuse occurred because priests who were poorly prepared and monitored, and were under stress, landed amid the social and sexual turmoil of the 1960s and ’70s.

Other Relevant Passages:

In one of the most counterintuitive findings, the report says that fewer than 5 percent of the abusive priests exhibited behavior consistent with pedophilia, which it defines as a “psychiatric disorder that is characterized by recurrent fantasies, urges and behaviors about prepubescent children.

“Thus, it is inaccurate to refer to abusers as ‘pedophile priests,’ ” the report says.

That finding is likely to prove controversial, in part because the report employs a definition of “prepubescent” children as those age 10 and under. Using this cutoff, the report found that only 22 percent of the priests’ victims were prepubescent.

The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders classifies a prepubescent child as generally age 13 or younger. If the John Jay researchers had used that cutoff, a vast majority of the abusers’ victims would have been considered prepubescent.

Just shows that the U.S. Bishops still are looking for excuses, not solutions.

[damntexdem]

1. Well, the bishops have special devotion to Santo Testosterone and Santa Buracracia, but ...

many are also devoted to Santa Nambla.

;-)

[Viking 1]

2. A prepubescent kid

is one which, as of yet, has no reproductive capabilities. Both bishops and shrinks are wrong to settle on an arbitrary number, as the age of onset varies considerably.

[yellowcanine]

4. The article points out that by excluding 11-13 year old kids, they actully excluded the exact cohort

which has suffered the most abuse from priests. Imagine that.

[Jackpine Radical]

5. Shrinks don't. The phrasing is something like "generally…"

and the new DSM, scheduled for release in 2013, is reportedly planning to use age 11 as a sort pf "suggested" age cutoff for clinical purposes. The real fact of the matter is that the criterion probably ought to be set in accordance with the Tanner stage of development of the victim, but one rarely has that information when trying to do the diagnosis.

It is important to distinguish between pedophilia and "hebephilia" (i.e. attraction to pubescent and post-pubescent minors) because a fairly large portion of the male population shows attraction as measured by physiological responsiveness to girls in those stages of development. If ;lots of people have the response, then by definition it isn't deviant. Acting on such impulses is, of course, illegal, immoral and vile, just not deviant.

[hedgehog]

3. Rape is still rape, horrendous regardless of the age of the victim.

The back story on this is the ongoing attempt to imply that the victims were older adolescents who initiated the encounters. "If the victims were 16 to 18, they must have wanted it!"

Not mentioned here, but female victims tend to be ignored because that disturbs the "it was the homosexual priests who did this" argument.