So Some Yankee Carpetbaggin' Church Stole Our Pastor

That kind of thing really shouldn't be allowed.

Love to.

You're joking in that first paragraph of the relative strengths of the RCC's priest assignment, right? The pedophile scandals were partly caused by that very system, which forced pedophile priests on unsuspecting parishes. I figure you're joking but wasn't sure.

I never said anything about the system as a whole being perfect, I said their method of choosing a particular minister for a given congregation was good, and I never even claimed that was perfect.

The sex-scandals have a lot more to do with other issues the Catholic church has with their priesthood - celibacy being a big one, in my opinion.

Why would you think, though, that a beaurecracy, oftentimes far removed from the unique preferences of a local congregation, would either know or care about the best interests of that congregation? The congregation has far less of a say-so in the decision, which strikes me as far from optimal.

The sex-scandals do have issues with the CC. Didn't say that it didn't. (I don't know if I buy celibacy is a cause, though. This sex scandal is realtively recent, given the history of the CC, but celibacy is as old as the church itself arguably). I said that the manner in which the CC allocates talent to churches (hierarchically) did considerable damage to parishes when they refused to fire pedophile priests and instead moved them to unsuspecting parishes. The centralized mechanism doesn't seem to me responsive to the needs of the local church, while the Protestant system is.

Not to mention the scrounging around for pulpit supply. Sorry for you guys. We're losing ours, too...not to mention that they're like our very best friends in NOLA. I cried for like an hour.

Jeannette - yikes! Are they going back to Europe? Scotland right?

Here's my plan for cstone. We will call all the great pastors in North America, and have them all pastor at OPC, thus garnering a monopoly on all the great pastors. Thus our membership will go up because people will flock to c stone for great preaching and, we the original members, will be viewed as bishops and will be given tracks of land and thus a new Feudal system will be created. Roe will be Lord of the Internet and will rule over that with an iron fist and I will rule over the Healthcare industry making it even harder for poor folk to find healthcare. Bishop Holton... has a good ring to it.

I think it is naive to believe that the sex scandal is a recent development among priests in the Catholic Church. Things of this nature have probably happened in the past, we just never heard about it. The RCC's method of assigning priests doesn't address the root question-- why does there exist so many pedophilic priests in the first place? The RCC's policy of celibacy has more bearing on this question because it addresses a potential root cause. Why these pedophilic priests are then re-assigned to other "unsuspecting" parishes is a separate issue that relates more to problems with the system, than to problems with the priests themselves.

Abbie - how many pedophile priests are there? And can you direct me to something you've read that shows, empirically, that the RCC has an unusually large number of pedophiles (say, relative to any other profession).

My point isn't to get into the causes of the scandal. I'm just saying that the RCC system of assigning priests to parishes does not necessarily provide a good match. It's the equivalent of an arranged marriage, and while any one of us may imagine that working occasionally, I personally prefer a system in which two people search and find one another. I think the Protestant system of matching preachers in which a congregation searches is going to lead to pastors and churches having a much better fit, and churches being ultimately more happy with their preachers, than a centralized mechanism.

Well, Scott, first of all, it would be incorrect to compare pedophilia among priests relative to pedophilia among any other profession. It would be akin to conducting a study on which profession embezzles more money—corporate executives or high school cheerleading coaches? The data would be inexorably skewed. One can, however, compare sexual abuse among priests with sexual abuse among other professions that deal regularly with minors.

If you were to conduct an investigation into the issue, you would find that people on both sides of the issue claim to have data supporting their opposing viewpoints. That is, either there is a disproportionately large number of priests engaging in sexual misconduct, or that the number is no larger than other professions (male basketball coaches, scout leaders, etc.) that deal regularly with minors. There is a variety of purported statistics on the percentage of priests guilty of sexual abuse (anywhere from 2%-- which is equal with that of similar professions, to 6%-- which is triple that). However, while I am hardly an expert on the issue, it is my personal opinion that no definitive study exists to support either side of the issue (please see the article by Alan Cooperman, "Sex abuse in clergy stymies scientists Lack of data thwarts efforts to gauge depth of the problem," Wash. Post, 2002-MAR-24, http://detnews.com/2002/religion/). Therefore, one can not make a definitive conclusion on the issue, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. However, I do think the issue raises the question: Does the profession of priest select (allows contact with youth, position of power, decreased risk of exposure, etc.) for pedophiles?

Where there exists a lack of empirical evidence, there exists common sense. Which dogs bite more people? Toy poodles or pit bulls? There hasn't been an empirically based study that I am aware of, but I have a pretty strong idea of which I'd rather be around with hamburger in my pockets.

losing the eckardt's = bad
following God's will = good
what a confusing thing. God does some weird stuff.
as you were.

P.S. thoughts on the future of cornerstone?

If there is no evidence to support either position, then why would it raise the question as to whether RCC selects for pedophiles? Weak empirical facts shouldn't cause you to ask those kinds of questions.

My main point was to point out, though, that regardless of the prevalence of pedophile priests, the way in which priests are matched with parishes made even those select problems worse. Like you, I do not know whether the RCC scandal is indicative of something real and deep within the institution, or if these were rare events. But, I do think that an argument can be made that the Protestant system makes these events less probable, since congregations have it in their best interest to thoroughly investigate each candidate before offering, and vice versa.

Abbie - it won't surprise me if the problem is entrenched. I'm genuinely unaware of studies that are conclusive as to its relative prevalence.

I really loved Cornerstone in the years and four locations we inhabited.

My PCA in Florida just called a new teaching elder and, as a member of the pulpit committee, I can say that there are currently many excellent and qualified pastors in both the PCA and OPC who have ministerial data forms filed with the denomination, are currently 'looking' and have indicated a willingness to join either denomination if called. Some of them wouldn't even have to drive far if called to Cornerstone.

I am certainly sympathetic to your aversion to deals made behind closed doors, but secrecy really is key to the delicate process. The PCA literature on the subject demands it of those involved, and, while I haven't sat on an OPC pulpit committee, I bet the OPC BCO does too.

Josiah and Abbie, It's so much fun to read your blog comments on this issue.
Yer pa and me is glad we done sent youins to them thar fancy colleges so y'all could git yersefs a mighty fine edurcashun. Looks like yer perfessers at them thar schools done learned you pretty good. I bet youins ken blow out them candles real nice like.
P.S. I'm personally glad that when Dad answered God's call to the gospel ministry that he did not go into the RCC. Otherwise you wouldn't be here to write on this blog and bring me enjoyment and support me in my old age.. (Unfornutately, the emphasis on celebacy is only one of their many unscriptural errors.)
P.P.S. Sorry to hear about your pastor leaving. Fortunately there is One who sticks closer than a brother and will never leave nor forsake you.

Scott, I never said that no evidence exists which supports either side of the issue. I simply stated that no definitive empirical studies have been performed on the subject (since that is the question you asked me). I question your statement that, "weak empirical facts should not cause you to ask those kinds of questions." I think weak facts should prevent us from forming snap judgments (although often in life we have to make decisions based on less than perfect data, and without the benefit of empirical studies), but they should definitely prompt us to further scrutiny. I believe we can make preliminary hypotheses based on the evidence at hand. Hypotheses are what prompt further investigation and empirical study, and how can further examination be anything but good and helpful?

I would thoroughly agree with your statement that there have been no conclusive studies performed on the prevalence of pedophilia among RCC priests. This is partly because if you sit down with 1,500 or so RCC priests and ask them if they are guilty of sexual misconduct, how likely are you to get an honest answer? Because this subject is relatively recently exposed to the public eye, the bulk of prosecution and convictions are ongoing. Therefore it is difficult to determine accurate stats based on the number of convictions. In addition, a factor which complicates further study is that each diocese operates independently of the rest of the Church in the U.S., and reports directly to the Vatican.

I was not trying to argue against the point you were making regarding inherent problems within the RCC system of selecting priests for parishes. I, too, believe that this only worsened the problem--allowing the priests access to many more victims. But problems with the RCC system are only an aggravating factor, and not the sole cause of the issue--which is why asking questions and performing investigations into the problem is so imperative. Also, I agree with you that the Protestant system has safeguards which make the events less likely to occur.

I disagree that you may hypothesis based on weak or inconclusive understanding of the data. If you we cannot agree on what precisely is happening, then why are we moving to the next step of building a hypothesis? Hypothesis to explain what?

Sexual crimes historically suffer from under-reporting of various kinds, and this RCC scandal is no exception. But we don't need to ask priests, right? We can look at things which we know are correlated with pedophilia, but which do not depend on priests telling us whether they are molesters. We could look at, for instance, the outcomes of children who are Catholic and compare them to non-Catholics from the same peer group and same neighborhoods. If pedophilia damages the child in anyway, and if we can decide on the measurable outcome (ie, depression, poor grades, etc.) then we might be able to tease out whether this scandal is, in fact, representative of something real and deep, or whether it is merely randomness in the system.

But to begin building hypothesis before one actually knows whether the empirical regularity exists is to get the cart before the horse.

If you are interested in this, though, you may want to check out Finke and Stark's book _Acts of Faith_ (two sociologists of religion). They have a chapter on Vatican II, and its effect on labor supply of priests, which I suspect could explain, not necessarily a rise or change in the aggregate number of predatorial priests, but possibly a decrease in the number of celibate, holy men interested in the clergy. There is a shortage, for instance, of priests in the Catholic Church, and the RCC's reluctance to fire pedophiles could be related to that shortage.

But I'm still agnostic on whether the RCC actually has a disproportionately high number of pedophiles. I hope they don't, but all I really know about the scandal is what I read in the news.

I guess, Scott, that our difference is that I don’t believe that there needs to be a empirical study performed that definitively demonstrates a significantly larger number of priests guilty of pedophilia than in other similar professions (such as male basketball coaches, scout leaders, etc.) in order to prompt further investigation into other facets of the issue. I think the fact that it is occurring at a rate at least equal with that of other similar professions, denotes that a problem of some sort does exist. I guess it all hinges on what one believes qualifies as a “problem.” And while I’d love to get on the semantics merry-go-round with you, I’m sure it would be an effort in futility for the both of us.

And, no, you do not have to ask the priests directly in order to perform some type of study into the matter, although if we could depend on their honesty, then that would certainly be the most ideal source of information. The study you suggest would be difficult to perform for a variety of reasons--it would be almost impossible to minimize confounding variables (those variables which have the ability to influence the dependent variable—in this case the RCC children—in the same way as the independent variable—in this case being raised in the RCC—thus confusing the results). We would have no way of knowing if the outcome criteria you suggested was caused by the independent variable, or by any of a number of confounding variables.

Thanks for the suggested reading, I will certainly check it out.

Hmmm... found my way here from Rick & Rachel's blog. I used to attend Redeemer in Dayton. I now belong to the daughter church Redeemer planted (still in Dayton). Anyway, I remember Bob from over 20 years ago. Didn't he attend Redeemer before he went to seminary?

Barb:
Yes, I have been at Redeemer under various circumstances before. I was ordained as associate pastor there in 1979, while working in Columbus, and preached there regularly during the summers in the early 90's. The first pastor, Lawrence Eyres, was a good friend of my family and of mine.

No, the study I outline would be able to control for those factors using regression analysis if you did have data on the relevant variables. And there are techniques that would allow you to control for them even if you did not data on it, so long as the variables in question were either fixed in time or isolated with a specific year (e.g. fixed effect regressions). Relying on simply asking someone to tell you something is not the preferred way to study things like this, though, since they all have an incentive to deceive - the incentive is even stronger for a pastor. But I assure you, studies like this are quite common in the social sciences.

I still don't understand how you can claim to even know the phenomenon exist if you don't have a good handle on it. How do you know that your common sense isn't biased? YOu can rely on your common sense to force you to do more investigation, but hopefully it's going to involve actually getting your head around the phenomenon in question. That's, at least, how they teach it here at my school.

Mom you're hilarious, since U dun gon to college can you blow out the candle now?

Scott, I am aware that the most common type of multivariate statistical analysis used in social science research is regression analysis (although I am at a disadvantage here, as I am not coming from a social science background, and did not often use regression analysis in my limited experience). I also know, since we do not live in a perfect world and deceit would be a highly motivating factor, that an alternative type of study would be necessary, perhaps regression analysis. I was only suggesting, given the specific study you proposed, it would be difficult to estimate the “pure” effect of some explanatory variables on the dependent variable, because it would be difficult to control the many other effects possible. And I think it would be difficult to establish a nonspurious relationship between your outcome measures and being a victim of pedophilia. But I am not incredibly knowledgeable in this area, and know when to bow out of argument (translation: no longer know what the hell I am talking about).

Also, I never claimed to know that a phenomenon was occurring.* “Phenomenon” and “problem” are two very different words. I don’t think a phenomenon per say, needs to be occurring in order to investigate causal factors, if a problem obviously exists. Why would a priest be pedophile? What characteristics does their profession share with other professions (coach, scout leader) that have a higher rate (>2%) of pedophilia than other occupations? Do these characteristics play a contributing role in their sexual deviancy?

*side note: Although this is a side issue, and not the phenomenon to which you were referring, I thought you might be interested in knowing that there is a documented phenomenon occurring among priests guilty of pedophilia. At least 90% (some sources say as high as 98%) of the criminal acts were by hebephiles (those who engage in sexual activity with post-pubertal, 13 to 17 year old boys). Donald Cozzens, former vicar of priests at the Diocese of Cleveland, OH, said "As a group, [child sexual] abusers tend to be married men who prey on girls, although many pedophiles abuse both girls and boys. Our respective diocesan experience revealed that roughly 90 percent of priest abusers targeted teenage boys as their victims. ... Relatively little attention has been paid to this phenomenon by church authorities.” This makes me wonder if the vow of celibacy has anything to do with the phenomenon. Are men more likely to be willing to take a vow of celibacy if they have no inclination toward marriage (or interest in women)? Perhaps requiring a vow of celibacy selects for men who would be more inclined toward homosexuality? Just some thoughts...

Also, I wanted to add that regression analysis has become widely known as one of the most abused methods of statistical analysis. While it can be a very effective instrument for identifying relationships and evaluating information, its reliability is dependent upon many suppositions that are often unsatisfied in practice (see www.proctoren.com/reports/need.html). For further information on the subject, a helpful resource is G.E.P. Box’s “Use and Abuse of Regression.”

Abbie - Thanks for the discussion. No need to discuss this further, if you're bowing out, though I enjoyed talking about it with you.

Have you read Andrew Greeley's new book Priests: A Calling in Crisis? You can read a review of it at that link. Greeley is a priest himself, and a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago.

I can't get the link to open up on the abuses of regression page you mention. But I will just say that if the person is saying that there is a lot of really bad science in the social sciences, then it doesn't surprise me. That's not to say that regression analysis is used too much, only that bad scientists may use it incorrectly. When you're talking about trying to deal with a population-wide phemoenon, though, there's nothing else you can use besides regression of some sort, because regression analysis is the only way you can control for factors. Interviews, ethnographic tools, various methods of psychologists (even quasi-quantitative ones) are going to be insufficient for the kind of thing you and I are talking about.

Hey Scott, I enjoyed the discussion as well. You obviously know what you are talking about, and gave me good food for thought. The more I think about it, the more I see the validity of your cart before the horse viewpoint--perhaps the questions I was asking were premature. I'm still thinking about it. And I appreciated the brush-up on regression analysis, it's been awhile since my advanced research and applied research classes, so I'm a little rusty in that area.

I have heard of Greeley's book, but I hadn't read a review so that was really helpful. I am particularly interested in what he has to say about celibacy and the priesthood. Thanks for suggesting it to me.

I don't know what the problem is with the link, I was just looking at it yesterday. I may have copied it wrong and I can't find it again. It was an article that included a discussion of Box's "Use and Abuse..." Sorry about that.

Found the box article you read most of it (will read the rest later). Just wanted to comment on it real quick. First, it was written in 1966. Econometrics has come a long way in forty years. THe problems he discuss in there, while still problems if one does not take seriously the problems he notes, are not problems obviously if one does take heed. Econometrics has evolved tremendously and most of the cool tricks that exist now are ones that address the very problem he notes - what he calls the presence of "latent variables" and how that can bias, theoretically, OLS regression estimates.

But there are plenty of ways in principle to address the problem of ommitted variable bias (another name for it). One is to use panel data (ie, more than two years of data on the same cross-section of data). If you have panel data, then a whole new world opens up to you, because now it is possible to "control" for those ommitted latent variables - even in situations where you do not have observations on the things themselves. For instance, say that you wanted to study the effect of legislation that allowed people to privately carry weapons in public on their private person ("shall issue laws" as they're called) on violent and property crime. The problem is that there is undoubtedly a latent variable called "propensity for to commit violence" that varies possibly by county, city and state. So long as that latent variable is fixed and does not change (imagine "culture" being like race or gender in that it does not change. This is not a plausible assumption over long periods of time, but it might be over a shorter span of time, like year-to-year), you can use what are called "fixed effect regressions" to address the very problem that Box notes - ommitted variable bias.

There are other interesting solutions, too, such as the use of instrumental variables, proxies, and other things. My point is, though - Box's criticism is mainly at scientists who use OLS without knowing that ommitted variable bias will cause the estimates to be, possibly, very wrong. The field of econometrics is completely devoted to improving our empirical techniques in order to get around problems like the one Box notes.

I wasn't saying that your questions were premature - I was only saying that it's possible that the media has overhyped the problem. Maybe not, though. I'm kind of hyper-aware of empirical problems in ways I used to not be because of my studies, and so I think people take for granted phenomenon when maybe the data for it isn't so good. They may be relying on first-hand exposure to something, and then extrapolating from that to develop a more general belief about something, but in reality, what they experienced was randomness in the system. Or maybe it wasn't random, but maybe it's just not as pervasive as they think. Qualitative studies ultimately cannot tell us anything about the magnitudes - they are hugely vital for helping us understand the texture of something, addressing things like motives and beliefs, and things which statistical analysis cannot. But they cannot tell us about causality, or about sizes. Finding a clever empirical test to something as difficult to measure as this (ie, child abuse in RCC) would be extremely valuable, and I think the study is out there waiting to be written. Not sure, but I think so.

That was quite an informative post, Scott. I found your explanation of the solutions to the problem Box raises to be most enlightening. I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to educate me on the subject. I was unaware that there were solutions to the problem of omitted latent variables. I thought a continuing limitation of regression analysis is that it often reaches the conclusion that there is a strong relationship between two variables, while failing to estimate the influence of alternative, more important, variables. While Box's article is 40 yrs old, it is still frequently referred to among the science community. And, as I said before, I come from a science background and have primarily looked at regression analysis through that lens. In my experience regression analysis was criticized from time to time, which is probably why I tend to view it in a disparaging light. But I am very interested in exploring further the solutions you spoke of, as well as their effectiveness.

You also made an excellent point about people taking phenomenon for granted. I don’t think I have been as aware of this in the past, but I certainly will be much more sensitive to it from now on. Not to sound flippant (given the subject matter), but it will be really interesting to see how this whole “pedophilia” thing plays out, and what the studies eventually conclude. Thanks for the discussion, Scott. I definitely learned a few things. Which is always a good feeling.

NO problem. I just took the time series econometrics exam the day before I wrote that, and so my head's swimming with this crap.