The Role of the Church in the Causation, Treatment and Prevention of the Crisis in the Priesthood

The Role of the Church in the Causation, Treatment and Prevention of the Crisis in the Priesthood, a report submitted to the Synod of Bishops in Rome in 1971, by Dr Conrad Baars, a Dutch-born Catholic psychiatrist from Minnesota, and based on a study of 1500 priests, suggested that seminary training left priests poorly prepared for a lifetime of celibacy. Most clergy had "psychosexual" problems which often expressed itself in alcohol abuse and heterosexual or homosexual activity. The report recommended specific immediate corrective action, but no implementation of the recommendations followed.

1. "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”.

2. Less than 15% of priests in Europe and North America were emotionally fully developed;

3. Of the remaining 85%, 20-25% had "serious psychiatric difficulties" that they expressed through alcohol abuse, while 60-70% had less severe degrees of emotional immaturity. Sunday Times report

Though the report suggested that immediate corrective action was needed, making ten recommendations, and one of those most active in the Synod was Cardinal Wojtyla, who on October 16, 1978 was elected Pope John Paul II, no implementation of the report's detailed recommendations followed. Rather, the response of the Roman Catholic Church to sex abuse by priests in the 20th century was marked by methods to avoid criminal prosecution or psychiatric treatment.