You Think It's Hard For Jews To Get Into Heaven? Try Being A Scientist

We're coming to you today from the Department of Redundancy Department here in the marbled halls of IM Central. The DORD is a division of the Corporation for the Preservation of Perseveration in partnership with This Is Where We Came In, NA.

It seems popey is back with reason 4,268 why you should get off his back 'cause the peeps was boinking the choirboys. And in what can only be called a master stroke of moral consistency, it's pretty much the same as reason 4, 267.

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.

 Aw, now see that's just disappointing right there. You pay good money for a study that's designed to get you off the hot seat for having a boatload of pervs in your employ and find out you can't blame the homos, even a little.

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.

 OK, let's get this straight. The pope's posse walked out into a society full of Make Love not War, Farrah Fawcett posters, and (shudder) Disco and decided the best way to cope with that was to schlep the holy rod of righteousness to the prepubescent members of the congregation? Is that what you're going with? Did you even notice that half the female parishioners came to services...erm...unsupported? What are you saying? All those unfettered boobies scared the cassocks back into the sacristy where instead of offering up a few hail Marys and our fathers from the fainting couch they played pet the one eyed snake with 12 year olds? Is that really the take away here?

The “blame Woodstock” explanation has been floated by bishops since the church was engulfed by scandal in the United States in 2002 and by Pope Benedict XVI after it erupted in Europe in 2010. But this study is likely to be regarded as the most authoritative analysis of the scandal in the Catholic Church in America. The study, initiated in 2006, was conducted by a team of researchers at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City at a cost of $1.8 million. About half was provided by the bishops, with additional money contributed by Catholic organizations and foundations. The National Institute of Justice, the research agency of the United States Department of Justice, supplied about $280,000.

Well, that settles it then.  This isn't about the Draped One looking for a way out of facing up to the fact that he totally misunderstood what the boss meant when he said suffer the children to come unto me--not to mention the serious rendering unto Caesar and Caesar's lawyers, no sirree mister, this is science. Science, man with a capital S!

The researchers concluded that it was not possible for the church, or for anyone, to identify abusive priests in advance. Priests who abused minors have no particular “psychological characteristics,” “developmental histories” or mood disorders that distinguished them from priests who had not abused, the researchers found.

Right on mister scientist sir. So when the police say child molesters are often an adult males who prefer children in a specific age group and may seek employment or volunteer with programs involving children of the age of their preference, they're just making stuff up because what? They're Lutherans?

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.

Right. Let's call them really friendly guys who like to keep little kids warm by rubbing up against them. Sure it doesn't trip off the tongue as easily as pervert, but we don't want to malign anyone's character unnecessarily.

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.

Oh. OK, well back to pervert then. This science stuff gets complicated. You following all this your Pradaness?

While accepting responsibility for the scandal, Benedict said the abuse must also be seen in the broader social context, in which child pornography and sexual tourism are rampant, and where as recently as the 1970s pedophilia wasn't considered the absolute evil that it is today.

You tell 'em Bene. Why, just look at any organization that was around in the 60's and 70's and you'll find pervs coming out of the woodwork, right scientist guys the church just paid a boatload of money to?

Because there are no comparable studies conducted by other institutions, religious or secular, the report says, “It is impossible to accurately compare the rate of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church to rates of abuse in other organizations.”

 See? There you are, just look at...wait, what? This is what the church gets for it's 1.8 mil? OK, we're going to need to talk to a supervisor about your refund policy.