Saturday, April 17, 2010

NPR – Psychologist for Priests

I listened to a disturbing story about a Psychologist who worked with over 300 pedophile catholic priests. The full title is Psychologist For Priests: I Saw Abusers Reinstated. It aired on April 15, 2010.  Dr. Leslie Lothstein recalls how priests who had molested children were returned to their jobs rather than moved out for treatment or monitoring.

"My experience was that if it was said to one of the clergy who was in charge ... that this person needs to have much more supervision, they would say, 'Oh yes, yes, it'll be there, they'll have supervision,' " Lothstein tells NPR's Michele Norris. "But then what happened was they went back to their normal, everyday work. And in going back to it, we learned much later that they didn't have the supervision."…

…"In my experience, there were some people who were sent right back to working in youth ministries, and they often offended," he says. "There was also a subgroup of people that I saw in my private practice where they were sent back by their religious order to a foreign country, and within that country continued to molest children. And it was just horrible."

This is a first hand account of a mindboggling breach of trust. How do Catholics put up with it?