In a zero-tolerance environment, the Catholic Church must first focus on screening out potential abusers from the start. The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors’ 2024 report primarily addresses how the Church can improve its response to abuse after it occurs but falls short in discussing preventive measures, especially around candidate admissions. Strengthening the psychological screening and admissions process for seminary candidates is essential to ensure that only those with a stable, trustworthy profile enter the priesthood. By adopting a more rigorous selection process that includes psychological analytics, the Church could make significant strides in preventing abuse from occurring, upholding its commitment to a safer, zero-tolerance Church environment.
Is there any hard evidence that psychological screening has a high success rate in catching pedophiles and men inclined to abuse post-pubescent minors or vulnerable adults?
I've heard this kind of suggestion before, and I'm not really a wide reader of psychology studies, so I could easily miss it. But I also recall a major factor in moving offending priests around being the assurance of psychologists that they had cured the pedophile and made him perfectly safe.
The Church shouldn't put all her eggs in one basket, in any case. Especially not when she's still having so much trouble getting rid of abusers that have been identified.
A good Pillar article/series would be talking to vocation directors and psychologists who screen candidates to see what the normal procedures are, how consistent they are, what responses/interventions are normally made in response to concerning results, etc. Probably would have to get most of them off them off the record... but I am certain Ed, JD, & Co. could do it.
I often wonder about calling references - I can't recall that for any job or position I have held, including volunteering so when I was getting my clearances, that my listed references or even previous employers were actually contacted. I suppose someone with a serious ax to grind (who perhaps has major issues of their own) could spoil it, but you could get a lot of useful information this way that isn't the kind of thing you could hide on a formal application or even in an interview (or psych screening if you're savvy enough to fool them, which some people are.)
Most of my references were never contacted either, but once or twice it actually happened. Once I was actually contacted as a reference though, and it seemed like the only way they were going to get anything regarding poor moral character or psychological disorders from their questions was if I actively chose to spill the beans (answering honestly wouldn't have done it). Of course, no one puts down references that they know have an axe to grind.
From what I've heard, employers have a tendency to not say anything bad about former employees in order to avoid lawsuits, even when the employee was fired for cause. There might be a reason few people bother to contact references/employers.
Data on the accuracy of psych screening is exactly what I was looking for. I've never heard of a double blind experiment on the subject. I have heard, in the Pillar comment section, of priests who coach SSA men to get them past the screening.
But a psych screening for potential abusers is actually trying to do something more difficult: find the people who might, at some point in the future, *become* abusers. Perhaps of college students or 16-17-year-olds rather than young children. At that point they don't actually have a psychological disorder, but merely a moral disorder, and those can be acquired later in life.
The IATA claims that airplane air is refreshed every 2-3 minutes, with half going through filters and half as fresh air. While technically that means the whole volume of air never fully is replaced (only halved every 3 minutes ), it still goes through a HEPA filter. I'm pretty sure most homes don't refresh the air that often
Also your link for that was testimony from tobacco groups claiming that the airlines saved that much money. I realize it was in court, so the guy likely wasn't lying, but is there any other evidence that's why they changed the air systems? Did high-quality filtration systems improve around the 90s, allowing airlines to refilter some of the air instead of bringing in fresh air, which would save money on heating the fresh air each time the cabin refreshes?
Airliners control cabin pressure by feeding in bleed air from the engines and then releasing it via valves on the aft bulkhead. Turns out that the valves were maintenance headaches, they were constantly clogged with cigarette tar, with the result that regulating cabin pressure would become difficult.
“Dispensation”, may be why so many have ‘dispensed’ with their Faith. Trying to evangelize by ‘making it easier’ to live our Faith has done just the opposite. Once upon a time there was a discipline of meatless Fridays. Made non-Catholics curious, and many followed that curiosity into the Faith. It also served to remind us cradle Catholics that we were, well, Catholic. Cardinal Jacques Maritain once wrote that the priest shortage would not be fixed by lowering standards, and maintained that toughening up the standards would resolve it. He used the example of military recruitment to make his point. The Marines for years met recruiting goals by saying they were looking for a few good men. As our current recruiting crisis demonstrates, lowering military recruitment standards to “sissy drag queens welcome” fails miserably. Same with our Faith and the priests we need. If it’s ‘easy’ to be Catholic, so easy one doesn’t need to actually change, then …. Well, we see the results. Telling the Faithful that we have Holy Days of Obligation challenges one to publicly live the Faith we claim. And is a healthy invitation to others.
A demonic demonstration of the validity of this is the fact that Islam gains a lot of converts by just that way: rigorous renunciation of the non-moslem world view and equally rigorous acceptance of mandatory religious behavior.
Today is All Saints Day, and the Church should remind us that martyrdom is not for limp wristed cowards. We should be exhorted to live our Faith in a way that would get us arrested in:
ChinaCubaNicazuelaNigeria, etc.
As one of our hymns says, let our shout be heard above the pagan horde:
As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD !!!
Now there's still a recommendation for some sort of penance on Friday. I'm still wondering what, if anything, people do for that. I racked my brain for a while and came to the conclusion that as far as a regular practice of penance is concerned, fasting and abstinence is about the easiest thing to integrate into your life that there is.
The official position of the Usccb is that the meat penance is still supposed to be the normal practice. They say that they "the Catholic community will ordinarily continue to abstain from meat by free choice as formerly we did in obedience to Church law"
Sure. But they allow the substitution of any other penance, and I haven't ever had a conversation with anyone who does any other penance (save those who occasionally substitute a rosary when they forget and eat meat). So I'm still wondering.
“Doing so is a kind of surrender of the spirit, an acceptance of bovine status as you meekly masticate whatever subhuman slop the surly staff shove in front of you, which I am convinced is mostly made up of salt and sedatives.”
“On my return from Rome last week, I was struck, as I often am, by the national scandal that is Washington-Dulles airport.”
Yep, I flew into Washington Dulles once and once was enough. Now when I fly to and from the DC area, I fly into Washington Reagan National airport, which is MUCH nicer.
I prefer Chicago Midway airport over Chicago O’Hare and Southwest Airlines over the other airlines for similar reasons.
The international concourse in Atlanta is a delight to be in, frequently with a pianist and I believe with a tiny Adoration chapel in a corner of the airport chapel. That is somewhere even if it’s not in the international concourse.
The domestic terminal that serves the southeast is a bleak single lane of the kind of in-air offerings Ed described. It’s less miserable than anywhere in the Houston airport, but it’s not great. Compared to international, it’s clear Americans have gotten the airport concourse that mirrors our cities.
// After correctly reciting the trick-or-treat mantra, she’d receive what was offered, put it in her little bag, then she would remember her manners and hand it back with a ‘Thank you!’ //
Interesting. She may be working her way unconsciously through mixed expectations: Do I please the adult in front of me or the more powerful adult behind me? I remember nothing about Halloween. Evidently it was not an important part of my life. Christmas, yes; Easter, a little; Thanksgiving, food; Halloween, blank. Observing the neighbors ignoring the Christian holidays and attempting to do what they think is expected of them on this curiously devilish holiday, one senses that they want the authorities to make their obligations clearer.
// the 98-page Annual Report on Church Policies and Procedures for Safeguarding //
It seems to me that those who constitute the institutional Church - the hierarchy, the bankers, the academics, the lawyers - are doing their best to be obedient participants in the current culture's celebration of sexual excess. The only message we hear from the Church "leaders" is: "We are so ashamed. We have been very, very bad citizens in your excellent and progressive modern society. Please keep hitting us as hard as you can."
// Of course, air travel used to be very different. //
That was at a time - not so very long ago - when the human spirit was valued far above the bottom line. Now, we are made daily to feel that we are nuisances to the efficient operation of various computer programs. After Covid, the Cincinnati airport instantly became a cement-walled prison. The computer had been given its head and it simply shoved the humans out of the way.
1.Our ecclesial and civilizational softness is creating the perfect environment for Islam to flourish. If we will not be soldiers for Christ, our progeny may well become soldiers for Allah.
2. Great leaders often demand the supreme sacrifice-Napoleon, Patton, Eisenhower...Jesus Christ. The less our leaders ask of us, the less inspiring they are.
3. Mitigation is killing monasticism. Trappists are disappearing with the disappearance of their charism, relentlessly softened in the post war years.
4. In the Church as in the world "Luxury is more ruthless than war." It is killing us.
5. As a result, we have fallen so low that our leaders routinely discuss the unspeakable and think they are deepening moral theology by seeking to justify sodomy.⁸
In a zero-tolerance environment, the Catholic Church must first focus on screening out potential abusers from the start. The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors’ 2024 report primarily addresses how the Church can improve its response to abuse after it occurs but falls short in discussing preventive measures, especially around candidate admissions. Strengthening the psychological screening and admissions process for seminary candidates is essential to ensure that only those with a stable, trustworthy profile enter the priesthood. By adopting a more rigorous selection process that includes psychological analytics, the Church could make significant strides in preventing abuse from occurring, upholding its commitment to a safer, zero-tolerance Church environment.
Is there any hard evidence that psychological screening has a high success rate in catching pedophiles and men inclined to abuse post-pubescent minors or vulnerable adults?
I've heard this kind of suggestion before, and I'm not really a wide reader of psychology studies, so I could easily miss it. But I also recall a major factor in moving offending priests around being the assurance of psychologists that they had cured the pedophile and made him perfectly safe.
The Church shouldn't put all her eggs in one basket, in any case. Especially not when she's still having so much trouble getting rid of abusers that have been identified.
A good Pillar article/series would be talking to vocation directors and psychologists who screen candidates to see what the normal procedures are, how consistent they are, what responses/interventions are normally made in response to concerning results, etc. Probably would have to get most of them off them off the record... but I am certain Ed, JD, & Co. could do it.
They might have to be somewhat cagey about the details of the procedures, but yeah, that would be a great article.
I often wonder about calling references - I can't recall that for any job or position I have held, including volunteering so when I was getting my clearances, that my listed references or even previous employers were actually contacted. I suppose someone with a serious ax to grind (who perhaps has major issues of their own) could spoil it, but you could get a lot of useful information this way that isn't the kind of thing you could hide on a formal application or even in an interview (or psych screening if you're savvy enough to fool them, which some people are.)
Most of my references were never contacted either, but once or twice it actually happened. Once I was actually contacted as a reference though, and it seemed like the only way they were going to get anything regarding poor moral character or psychological disorders from their questions was if I actively chose to spill the beans (answering honestly wouldn't have done it). Of course, no one puts down references that they know have an axe to grind.
From what I've heard, employers have a tendency to not say anything bad about former employees in order to avoid lawsuits, even when the employee was fired for cause. There might be a reason few people bother to contact references/employers.
Data on the accuracy of psych screening is exactly what I was looking for. I've never heard of a double blind experiment on the subject. I have heard, in the Pillar comment section, of priests who coach SSA men to get them past the screening.
But a psych screening for potential abusers is actually trying to do something more difficult: find the people who might, at some point in the future, *become* abusers. Perhaps of college students or 16-17-year-olds rather than young children. At that point they don't actually have a psychological disorder, but merely a moral disorder, and those can be acquired later in life.
Ed-
What bar in Fells???
Todd Conner’s
You could totally moonlight as a travel writer in the dyspeptic genre of Paul Theroux.
The IATA claims that airplane air is refreshed every 2-3 minutes, with half going through filters and half as fresh air. While technically that means the whole volume of air never fully is replaced (only halved every 3 minutes ), it still goes through a HEPA filter. I'm pretty sure most homes don't refresh the air that often
Also your link for that was testimony from tobacco groups claiming that the airlines saved that much money. I realize it was in court, so the guy likely wasn't lying, but is there any other evidence that's why they changed the air systems? Did high-quality filtration systems improve around the 90s, allowing airlines to refilter some of the air instead of bringing in fresh air, which would save money on heating the fresh air each time the cabin refreshes?
Plus, air in the stratosphere is very clean.
Airliners control cabin pressure by feeding in bleed air from the engines and then releasing it via valves on the aft bulkhead. Turns out that the valves were maintenance headaches, they were constantly clogged with cigarette tar, with the result that regulating cabin pressure would become difficult.
And not a single word about Luce was written!
Came here to ask:
"But what do you think about Luce?!"
He totally trolled us without saying a word
No one can make me care.
I want know where I can buy such a doormat!
Those would come especially handy during election season 😛
“Dispensation”, may be why so many have ‘dispensed’ with their Faith. Trying to evangelize by ‘making it easier’ to live our Faith has done just the opposite. Once upon a time there was a discipline of meatless Fridays. Made non-Catholics curious, and many followed that curiosity into the Faith. It also served to remind us cradle Catholics that we were, well, Catholic. Cardinal Jacques Maritain once wrote that the priest shortage would not be fixed by lowering standards, and maintained that toughening up the standards would resolve it. He used the example of military recruitment to make his point. The Marines for years met recruiting goals by saying they were looking for a few good men. As our current recruiting crisis demonstrates, lowering military recruitment standards to “sissy drag queens welcome” fails miserably. Same with our Faith and the priests we need. If it’s ‘easy’ to be Catholic, so easy one doesn’t need to actually change, then …. Well, we see the results. Telling the Faithful that we have Holy Days of Obligation challenges one to publicly live the Faith we claim. And is a healthy invitation to others.
A demonic demonstration of the validity of this is the fact that Islam gains a lot of converts by just that way: rigorous renunciation of the non-moslem world view and equally rigorous acceptance of mandatory religious behavior.
Today is All Saints Day, and the Church should remind us that martyrdom is not for limp wristed cowards. We should be exhorted to live our Faith in a way that would get us arrested in:
ChinaCubaNicazuelaNigeria, etc.
As one of our hymns says, let our shout be heard above the pagan horde:
As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD !!!
All Saints, please pray for us!
Jacques Maritain a Cardinal?
It was suggested but never happened.
Yes, all saints, pray to God for us!
Thanks for the correction.
Now there's still a recommendation for some sort of penance on Friday. I'm still wondering what, if anything, people do for that. I racked my brain for a while and came to the conclusion that as far as a regular practice of penance is concerned, fasting and abstinence is about the easiest thing to integrate into your life that there is.
The official position of the Usccb is that the meat penance is still supposed to be the normal practice. They say that they "the Catholic community will ordinarily continue to abstain from meat by free choice as formerly we did in obedience to Church law"
Sure. But they allow the substitution of any other penance, and I haven't ever had a conversation with anyone who does any other penance (save those who occasionally substitute a rosary when they forget and eat meat). So I'm still wondering.
“Doing so is a kind of surrender of the spirit, an acceptance of bovine status as you meekly masticate whatever subhuman slop the surly staff shove in front of you, which I am convinced is mostly made up of salt and sedatives.”
Legendary.
God bless ED. such creative, hilarious and curmudgeonly insights into the most bizarre situations.
He says what a few of us think.
Reminds me of Chesterton
Air travel is clearly best paired with meditation on the Prodigal son's diet of stolen pig feed.
What, no curmudgeon on Luce? Not that I care about Luce, but I was really looking forward to Ed’s hot take on what JD wrote in Tuesday.
Maybe they get to it in The Pillar Podcast?
“On my return from Rome last week, I was struck, as I often am, by the national scandal that is Washington-Dulles airport.”
Yep, I flew into Washington Dulles once and once was enough. Now when I fly to and from the DC area, I fly into Washington Reagan National airport, which is MUCH nicer.
I prefer Chicago Midway airport over Chicago O’Hare and Southwest Airlines over the other airlines for similar reasons.
“One shouldn’t smoke in front of kids….. if you aren’t prepared to share with them.” 😆 thank you for that line.
The international concourse in Atlanta is a delight to be in, frequently with a pianist and I believe with a tiny Adoration chapel in a corner of the airport chapel. That is somewhere even if it’s not in the international concourse.
The domestic terminal that serves the southeast is a bleak single lane of the kind of in-air offerings Ed described. It’s less miserable than anywhere in the Houston airport, but it’s not great. Compared to international, it’s clear Americans have gotten the airport concourse that mirrors our cities.
// After correctly reciting the trick-or-treat mantra, she’d receive what was offered, put it in her little bag, then she would remember her manners and hand it back with a ‘Thank you!’ //
Interesting. She may be working her way unconsciously through mixed expectations: Do I please the adult in front of me or the more powerful adult behind me? I remember nothing about Halloween. Evidently it was not an important part of my life. Christmas, yes; Easter, a little; Thanksgiving, food; Halloween, blank. Observing the neighbors ignoring the Christian holidays and attempting to do what they think is expected of them on this curiously devilish holiday, one senses that they want the authorities to make their obligations clearer.
// the 98-page Annual Report on Church Policies and Procedures for Safeguarding //
It seems to me that those who constitute the institutional Church - the hierarchy, the bankers, the academics, the lawyers - are doing their best to be obedient participants in the current culture's celebration of sexual excess. The only message we hear from the Church "leaders" is: "We are so ashamed. We have been very, very bad citizens in your excellent and progressive modern society. Please keep hitting us as hard as you can."
// Of course, air travel used to be very different. //
That was at a time - not so very long ago - when the human spirit was valued far above the bottom line. Now, we are made daily to feel that we are nuisances to the efficient operation of various computer programs. After Covid, the Cincinnati airport instantly became a cement-walled prison. The computer had been given its head and it simply shoved the humans out of the way.
1.Our ecclesial and civilizational softness is creating the perfect environment for Islam to flourish. If we will not be soldiers for Christ, our progeny may well become soldiers for Allah.
2. Great leaders often demand the supreme sacrifice-Napoleon, Patton, Eisenhower...Jesus Christ. The less our leaders ask of us, the less inspiring they are.
3. Mitigation is killing monasticism. Trappists are disappearing with the disappearance of their charism, relentlessly softened in the post war years.
4. In the Church as in the world "Luxury is more ruthless than war." It is killing us.
5. As a result, we have fallen so low that our leaders routinely discuss the unspeakable and think they are deepening moral theology by seeking to justify sodomy.⁸