It’s time to put the record straight — and to chart a way forward so that the pattern of abuses we studied is never repeated.

To do that, it’s important to understand the background of the report and what it was intended to accomplish. Our mandate was to understand what led to the problem of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests from 1950 to the present day.

We studied individual priests who abused, the Church leaders who were responsible for overseeing them, and the broader social context in which the abuse took place.

A study of this complexity does not easily lend itself to an accurate sound bite.

Nevertheless, one early media report in a national paper attributed the explanation of social factors as a “Blame Woodstock” excuse, a phrase that went viral and was cited more than 14,000 times within the next two days.

The truth is, at no point in the report did we “blame” Woodstock or simplify the explanation of the abuse crisis to the “swinging sixties,” as some papers reported.

Another fallacy contained in the early media reports included the “fact” that we did not address the problematic actions of the bishops. Critics suggested that since we relied only on data from the dioceses, the bishops influenced the study findings.

Actually, the data for the Causes and Context study came from seven unique sources — a fact overlooked in most media reports. The data were derived from bishops and priests, victim assistance coordinators, victim advocates, survivors, clinicians, seminaries, historical and court documents.

Many media outlets also accused us of being “puppets of the Church.” Although nearly half of the funding for the study was provided by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Review Board — a group of lay Catholics created in the 2002 Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People — was tasked with overseeing the progress of the report.

The bishops did not influence our findings in any way.

It is also worth pointing out that I am not Catholic, and I have not historically, nor do I currently have, any personal ties to the Catholic Church.

The controversy over the report is understandable. The sexual abuse of children is an emotional, disturbing and heart-wrenching issue. It is even more so when the abusers were in a place of trust and spiritual leadership over the children they abused.

The sexual abuse of minors is a serious societal problem, and one that can lead to substantial and long-term harm to victims. But in the rush to publish following the leak of our report, many of the early articles did a disservice to the research conducted and, more importantly, to abuse victims.

What the Study Really Found

To understand why Catholic priests sexually abused minors, we conducted extensive data collection over a period of four years.

We studied the problem from socio-cultural, psychological, situational and organizational perspectives, and we consulted with psychologists, sociologists of religion, statisticians, and theologians.

Though we recognize that sexual abuse has always occurred in the Catholic Church, as well as in other organizations and society generally, we were mandated to study the problem from 1950 onward. It would have been prohibitive to study abuse prior to this time for practical and methodological reasons.

The data collected for this study indicated that the factors associated with the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church were complex.

This is not surprising. There is no single “cause” of child sexual abuse in society, and we did not hypothesize that there would be one in the Church.

Rather, the findings indicate that abusive behavior could best be explained through an interaction of micro- and macro-level factors. While the patterns of abuse in the Catholic Church are consistent with (though not caused by) patterns of other types of social behavior from the 1960s through the 1980s (when abuse cases peaked), data showed that most of the priest-abusers had problems such as intimacy deficits, an emotional and psycho-sexual maturity level similar to adolescents, and life stressors, as well as inadequate seminary education on how to live a life of chaste celibacy.

The abuse was particularly pronounced for men who were ordained in the 1940s and 1950s, a time when there was a substantial increase in Catholic seminarians and inadequate education for them.

These men were placed in positions where they were mentoring and nurturing adolescents and, like many non-clergy sex offenders, they regressed to abusive behavior.

Few abusers were primarily sexually attracted to children; a very small percentage of priests were clinically diagnosed with pedophilia (by clinicians, using standard guidelines of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). Many had other problems, such as alcoholism, stress, or financial improprieties.

And many priests who abused children also had sexual relationships with adults.

Taken together, this means that there is no risk assessment instrument that could have weeded out the abusers before ordination. This was a human problem; some adults are susceptible to abuse children in the Church and in any organization where adults spend time with children.

But the abusers themselves are only one part of the story. The Causes and Context report also chronicled in detail the Church’s response to abuse. The report states that the Church has taken significant steps in creating safe environments since signing the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in 2002.

The report also notes, however, that the implementation of child protection policies in the 1980s and 1990s was focused on priests instead of victims, was not consistent across dioceses in the United States, and lacked transparency.

What’s Next?

Since the publication of the report, we have been subjected to substantial criticism from those who are not happy about the “findings” — or at least the findings reported in those first media articles.

We have received malicious and even threatening calls and letters, and we have been mocked through satirical cartoons, on syndicated television programs and in op-eds. Those who have responded in such a way have asked two questions: How could we have so irresponsibly blamed Woodstock, and how could we let the bishops off the hook?

The critics with the loudest voices, who were making statements before and on the day the report was released, had not even read it.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the controversy surrounding the report is that the one-dimensional headlines have obscured some of the healthy responses to its findings. These should not be overlooked.

Academics have begun engaging in serious discussions about the findings, their importance, and their application to the field of child sexual abuse generally.

And while no single measure can root out all individual child sexual abusers in the church, we have already detected a strong and broadly based commitment to address the gaps in current policies of prevention and oversight that allowed these unhealthy patterns of abuse to continue for so long in the U.S. and elsewhere.

In the month since publication, our research team has presented our findings to national and overseas audiences. Based on our study, the National Review Board, for example, is preparing recommendations to the U.S. Catholic Church about enhancing current policies and creating new ones.

Earlier this month, we traveled to Rome to meet with Catholic Church representatives from 22 countries and Vatican officials, with the aim of discussing how this issue has affected the Church worldwide and whether there are uniform policies that can be implemented to prevent sexual abuse. The Vatican is hosting meetings with Church leaders this winter to help guide the development of guidelines and policies.

We are confident that our study has laid the groundwork for such strategies of response by church leaders and the laity.

This may be small comfort to the many victims who continue to cope with the traumatic consequences of their experiences. But it offers some measure of confidence that this sordid chapter of Church history can be brought to a close.

Karen J. Terry, a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at John Jay College, also serves as the college’s Associate Provost and Interim Dean of Research and Strategic Partnerships. She was the principal investigator and co-author of the Causes and Context report.

Outrageous, you’re thinking. This would never happen, you’re thinking. Even if the Catholic Church were so brazen in its bigotry as to deny food to hungry LGBT people, they have to know that they can’t use public funds to do so, right? Think again.

In the State of Illinois, a real battle is underway between Catholic Charities and the state’s human rights laws. Specifically, Catholic Charities has suspended its publicly funded adoption and foster care services because they anticipate state sanctions if they were to continue refusing to serve LGBT families. They have now filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction against the state from enforcing the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Unions Act, which went into effect on June 1. The Act gives same-sex and opposite-sex couples the right to enter civil unions, which are defined as the equivalent to marriage. Partners in a civil union are to be treated as spouses as the word is defined by Illinois law. If a group such as Catholic Charities discriminates against civil union spouses by denying them access to programs funded with public state dollars, they are now in violation of several Illinois anti-discrimination laws and in danger of losing their state grants.

In many cities around the country, adoption and foster care services are farmed out to private agencies, many of them religious, through lucrative state contracts. Adoption and foster care have long been big business for the Catholic Church, and up until the last few years they have always been happy to benefit from public dollars. But now that states have begun to recognize LGBT families as part of the public, as members of the community who deserve equal treatment, those state dollars come with a catch. Publicly funded programs can’t deny services to members of the public whose rights are protected by anti-discrimination laws. That has now started to include every religious conservative’s favorite punching bag: LGBT families. This is not the first time Catholic Charities has gone to bat against LGBT families in states that have recognized their equality. Catholic Charities of Boston and D.C. both shut down their publicly funded adoption and foster care services rather than comply with anti-discrimination laws in those cities. But the Church still wants to have its cake and eat it too, and isn’t willing to give up on those state contracts so easily. In Illinois, they’re fighting on both the judicial and legislative fronts. In addition to the civil lawsuit seeking an injunction, they’ve also been pushing hard on friendly legislators to amend the civil union law to exempt religious organizations from having to comply.

So far, the legislative efforts have failed several times in committee. The lawsuit should also be a no-brainer. Catholic Charities essentially argues that the new civil unions law prohibits them from functioning as a religious organization according to their own religious values. Same-sex couples can go elsewhere, they say, to become foster and adoptive parents, and therefore they are not being denied access to these public services. (Never mind that the unfortunate children assigned to Catholic Charities suffer when loving, qualified parents are turned away for being gay.) To no great surprise, they have failed to anticipate constitutional arguments. Their complaint also glosses over the very real problem that many anti-gay religious groups have when attempting to use state funds to enrich their own programs: Cherry picking. Not only does Catholic Charities want to cherry pick between the members of the public who benefit from public funds, but they want to do so in a way that would not be legally permissible for a public agency. Further, the Church cherry picks through its own religious values. They have no ban on atheist applicants or applicants who have previously been divorced; these types of discrimination would also be illegal under Illinois law. Catholic Charities has never been allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion, and yet somehow managed to operate without a problem for all these years as a state contractor. The court should have a difficult time buying that being heterosexual is more integral to the Catholic doctrine than a belief in Jesus. Finally, no one is forcing Catholic Charities to take public money. They can continue to run private adoption services in as discriminatory a fashion as they like, using the Church’s own private funds.

There are some Illinois citizens who will buy the argument that the civil unions law forces Catholic Charities to compromise its religious values. For them, I included the fictitious food bank example at the beginning. Any decent person can see why the Catholic Church would be dead wrong to refuse to feed LGBT families and to call that discrimination an integral part of Catholic religious doctrine. The controversy over civil unions is exactly the same. Catholic Charities wants to ignore the fact that LGBT kids exist, are assigned to the agency, and may benefit greatly from being placed in a home headed by a same-sex couple. The Church leadership wants to ignore the fact that same-sex couples often make wonderful parents, as good or even better than their straight counterparts, and that there is a dearth of eligible foster families for the number of kids who need homes. By refusing to serve LGBT families, Catholic Charities appropriates a huge quantity of state resources and reserves them exclusively for straight members of the public. Now that the state has recognized that this is illegal discrimination, it’s time for them to either start serving the entire public or to give up the public funds.

Leslie Fenton is a 2005 graduate of the NYU School of Law. She is licensed in LA and IL and currently runs her own family law practice in Chicago. Follow her on Twitter @lawlesslawyer.

Curiously, this would put the Lebanese government under the umbrella of “not having a clue” about what constitutes anti-Catholicism, according to Catholic League President Bill Donahue. The chapter refused to condemn Gaga’s “Judas” –most likely in an attempt to not bring any more publicity to the song than it had to – by saying it was a “mess” but, “if anyone thinks the Catholic League is going to go ballistic over Lady Gaga’s latest contribution, they haven’t a clue about what really constitutes anti-Catholicism.”

Seeing as how 39 percent of Lebanon identifies itself as Catholic and only 23 percent of Americans do, the American Catholic League might not get the final say on this one. We’re still waiting to hear back from the Vatican on its official response to Gaga.

The artist, Oliviero Rainaldi, depicts the pontiff as if he is opening his cloak to embrace the faithful.

But the Vatican says the effect is “of a mantle that almost looks like a sentry box, topped by a head of a pope which comes off too roundish.”

Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno, asked by APTN in an exclusive interview in his office if the city might take down the statue, said public opinion would be considered.

“There’s an ancient saying: ‘Vox populi, vox dei’ (Latin for voice of the people, voice of God),” Alemanno said. “And from this point of view we cannot help but take into consideration the opinion of the public.”

“And if public opinion consolidates around a negative opinion, we’ll have to take that into consideration,” the mayor said.

While acknowledging that the work is a modern one, and describing as “praiseworthy” the city of Rome’s initiative to erect the tribute, the Vatican said “the statue’s sin” is that it is “hardly able to be recognized.”

The statue, paid for by a foundation at no cost to the city of Rome, was erected a few days ago, to mark what would have been John Paul’s 91st birthday, on May 18. Pope Benedict beatified John Paul, the last formal step before sainthood, on May 1, at a ceremony drawing about 1 million admirers to Rome.

The website of the Silvana Paolini Angelucci Foundation, which is dedicated to humanitarian efforts and which donated the statue, makes no mention of the controversy. Neither the foundation nor the artist could be reached immediately for comment.

Comments of passers-by in the square Friday largely echoed those on Rome daily Il Messaggero’s website, where 90 percent of respondents told the paper’s online questionnaire that they didn’t like the statue.

The sculpture “doesn’t speak to me,” said Gracia Gonzalez Sanchez, from the Spanish coastal city of Malaga. “I can’t recognize the pope. It could be a cardinal or anyone else. I think they should have put a crucifix or some other symbol related to him,” she told The Associated Press.

Fausto Durante, a 58 year-old from southern Puglia who commutes to Rome twice weekly for work, said the statue wasn’t bad but it just shouldn’t be in a public square.

“Millions of people pass by this place every day, and you need something you can recognize. If the artist wants to do conceptual art, he would aim for a museum, not a public place where the faithful want to recognize their pope,” Durante said.

He started to walk away, but turned back to say: “I want to add that its profile looks like Mussolini.

The city noted that Vatican culture officials had seen a sketch of the work and approved it.

Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, confirmed that the sketch “received a positive opinion by the culture commission” of the Holy See. What happened between sketch stage and the final result, he couldn’t say.

A Rome cleaning woman ventured some practical objections, as well as artistic. “With the shape of a cape, sooner or later the homeless people at the station will sleep inside it, and in no time, it will be full of bottles of beer,” said Grazia Liberti, 46, returning home after her night job.

(This version corrects that Malaga is a coastal city, not an island.)

Well, actually, that’s exactly what the researchers concluded in the report, which was commissioned by U.S. Roman Catholic bishops. They found that less than 4 percent of accused priests can be considered pedophiles — based on a definition specifying attraction to those age 10 and younger — and, “thus, it is inaccurate to refer to abusers as ‘pedophile priests.’” Interestingly enough, though, the New York Times points out that The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders uses an age ceiling of 13 in its definition of the sexual disorder. “If the John Jay researchers had used that cutoff,” the paper explained, “a vast majority of the abusers’ victims would have been considered prepubescent” — which would make the pedophilia label seem more apt.

I had to wonder: Is the rate of sexual offenses against children really influenced by “opportunity”? If we can’t call abusive priests “pedophiles,” then what are they, exactly? And how does sexuality play into all of this? I called Fred Berlin, director of the Sexual Behavior Consultation Unit at Johns Hopkins, to talk about the pedophilia label, the impact of cultural change on abuse and how problems in the priesthood point to a much larger crisis.

What do you think of the report’s definition of pedophilia?

I think the term pedophilia has been used very loosely. The reason there can be differences in what’s considered prepubescent is that puberty can start at different ages for different individuals. But pedophilia does refer to a situation in which a person’s sexual makeup is such that they are recurrently drawn toward prepubescent youngsters. Many of the accused priests were involved with older adolescents and are not attracted to prepubescent children.

How are pedophiles different from those who pursue sexual relations with post-pubescent minors?

Most of us can appreciate that older adolescents are physically attractive human beings — but it doesn’t mean we’re gonna act on it. People can give in to feelings of attraction because they’re high on drugs or alcohol; they may have no abnormality at all in their sexual makeup. There are people who may just be lacking a sense of conscience and responsibility and therefore are not properly disciplined.

Some of the involvement with older adolescent males might have been homosexual men who were acting improperly, but I want to emphasize quickly that that doesn’t mean homosexual men are any more at risk of getting involved with children than are heterosexual men. In fact, the most common instance in which older adolescents are sexually abused is by a heterosexual man in the family.

There is a group of people who don’t have pedophilia, they’re not recurrently drawn to prepubescent children, but unlike the rest of us they have an inordinately high attraction to older adolescents. In some cases they might not even be attracted to individuals their own age. That’s known as ephebophilia, which is defined as inordinately heightened attraction to older adolescents. Some of the [priests who were] serial offenders involved with older adolescents may not have been gay in the sense of being attracted to males who are adults; they may have had this sexual disorder that recurrently drew them to adolescent youngsters.

What do you make of the finding that gay priests were not likelier to abuse than straight priests? The researchers found that priests more often abused boys than girls simply because they had more access to them.

First of all, how do we know who is or isn’t a gay priest? It depends on what [abusive priests] are going to acknowledge. There’s a man named Richard Sipe, who was previously a priest and is now a mental health researcher, and from his experience he believed that the percentage of [closeted] gay men in the Catholic Church was quite high. Again, I’m not saying this in any critical way, but it may be that some of these men for obvious reasons were hesitant to acknowledge their sexuality.

There’s a tremendous body of data showing that gay men are no more likely to become sexually involved with a boy than are heterosexual men to become involved sexually with a girl — and that’s one of the reasons that they allowed gay men to adopt in Florida. The evidence simply doesn’t support that this is a gay problem. In fact, I think that’s one of the mistakes the church made early on, thinking they had a homosexuality problem when what they really had was a child sexual abuse problem.

So, the researchers found that “situational factors” were crucial here.

Well, there’s always many factors. Take an alcoholic — there certainly can be a genetic predisposition for alcoholism and yet whether you’re gonna drink is dependent on whether a drink is available, your urges can be heightened by stresses of daily living or you may turn to drink because you’re depressed and want to feel better. So, certainly, if someone has a sexual disorder then that acts as a predisposing factor, but whether they’re gonna act on that sexual abnormality of makeup can be influenced by a number of factors in their environment and that affected them in growing up and so on.

What about the argument that there was something in the cultural climate of the 60s and 70s that facilitated the rise in priest abuse?

I don’t want to suggest I have all the answers, but child sexual abuse had been around long before the early 60s. I question how much of it relates to an increase in its occurrence, versus a greater sensitivity to the fact that it was happening. Cultural factors always can influence the ways in which people express themselves behaviorally, but to suggest that’s anywhere near the totality of the explanation — or even the bulk of the explanation — I’d be skeptical of that.

They found that you can’t reliably predict which priests will abuse based on individual characteristics. Is that true in the population at large?

If someone has a sex disorder, what’s predisposing them has to do with the privacy of their sexual makeup. That’s a whole separate issue from what they’re like, their character, their temperament or personality — the things we observe in them in daily interactions. If I’m a person that’s sexually attracted to children, you and I can talk on a daily basis, but unless you know what I’m doing in my private time, you have no way of detecting that.

The best predictor of future behavior, absent treatment or intervention, is past performance. If we know we have a record of someone being involved with children that will certainly raise our index of suspicion. But the idea that there is some personality test that could have [predicted abuse] would simply be to make a statement that doesn’t hold much validity.

I’ve read that the reported rate of child sexual abuse among priests isn’t any higher than in the general population.

I’m not sure we have any evidence that this is more of a problem in the priesthood than outside of it. I mean, people try to blame celibacy, but the Boy Scouts of America have had comparable problems. I think it’s so much more egregious and so much more shocking when it’s a priest because they’re in a trusted position. They’re supposed to be people with the highest moral standards. So, the shock and outrage that we experience is far greater than occurs in other cases.

What is your takeaway from all this?

We’ve become so punitive in our approach here that I worry that we lose track of the fact that to prevent victimization we need to learn more about those factors that cause individuals to want to become sexually involved with children. We have such a “we” versus “they” mentality, I worry that we’re gonna lose track of the fact that some of these people are in need of serious mental health assistance.