Clerical sex offenders are worse

Clerical sex offenders are more likely to use force than their peers who are not men of the cloth. A scientific study comparing matched samples of clerical and non-clerical sex offenders found:

The majority of cleric-sex offenders suffered from a sexual disorder (70.8%), predominantly homosexual pedophilia, as measured by phallometric testing, but did not differ from the control groups in this respect. The clerics were comparable to the other two groups in most respects, but tended to show less antisocial personality disorders and somewhat more endocrine disorders. The most noteworthy features differentiating the clerics from highly educated matched controls were that clerics had a longer delay before criminal charges were laid, or lacked criminal charges altogether, and they tended to use force more often in their offenses.

Church sex offenders in general apparently do more harm than their unchurched peers:

… that stayers (those who maintained religious involvement from childhood to adulthood) had more sexual offense convictions, more victims, and younger victims, than other groups. Results challenge assumptions that religious involvement should, as with other crime, serve to deter sexual offending behavior.

Special pleadings on behalf of clerical and otherwise churched offenders, pleadings like and more extreme than those which greeted Msgr. William J. Lynn's sentence this week, are indeed outrageous, as Susan Matthews argues. It will be good and just if the Irish Times is right and leaders who have protected and enabled predators are more frequently brought to justice.

H/T: Bilgrimage