A Guide to Assessing Child Abuse
In response to the media and society's enthusiasm to rid the world of pedophilia I think the Church should begin a mandatory child abuse survey (for adults) and hotline in every parish to identify all of the predators in our society, to expose them and to expose all of the covering up in our neighborhoods, in our schools and in every social context, not just in Church. It is hypocritical and self-serving for us just to look for victims of priestly abuse when we all know that the problem is in every family (e.g. internet pornography), neighborhood, school and anywhere young people are.
PROTECTING THE SEXUAL INTEGRITY OF AMERICA’S CHILDREN
1. Are you male or female?
2. How old were you when you were first sexually stimulated.
3. What was the context? Alone. Pornography. Other person. Same sex. Opposite sex. Multiple other persons.
4. Where did it take place?
5. If pornography, what was the medium (e.g. magazine, internet, TV) and who provided it? e.g. relative, friend, etc.
6. How many times (or how often) did you participate in sexual activity before your eighteenth birthday? Give the type act(s) and roughly the number of times (or frequency) and whether others were involved in each encounter and your and their ages at the time, and their status or relationship to you (e.g. relative, teacher, doctor, non-Catholic clergyman [indicate denomination], Catholic clergyman, a person personally unknown to you), and their gender.
7. Have you yourself ever sexually stimulated and/or had genital contact with a minor (even while you yourself were under 18)?
A. If so, how old were you and how old was the minor involved?
B. What was the gender of the minor?
C. What was the type of act and how many times (or how frequently) did you do it?
8. Have you reported any of this abuse to the authorities?
If so, have the proper measures been taken to protect the children involved or to redress the wrong?
9. What is your level of same-sex attraction? (Circle only one please)
None. Exclusively attracted to the opposite sex; same sex has never aroused me.
Mild. I have been sexually aroused by the same sex on some rare occasions and never taken the initiative in a same sex encounter.
Medium. I have had same sex arousal on various occasions and continue to occasionally experience it and have enjoyed same sex encounters on some rare occasions even taking the initiative in some of those encounters.
Strong. I have frequent same sex arousal and have frequently aroused others of the same sex.
Exclusively same-sex. I have been and continue to be very much aroused only by the same sex and have never had any inclination toward the opposite sex.
10. What is your assessment of the society’s treatment of the Catholic Church over the societal problem of child sexual abuse? Unfair. Fair. Somewhat exaggerated. Grossly exaggerated.
