20/20 Vision

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly known as the Inquisition) have published a guide on how to tell if religious visions are genuine.

The guide was written in 1978 but they are publicizing it now because, they say ‘Today, more than in the past, news of these apparitions is diffused rapidly among the faithful thanks to the means of information (mass media)’. The Congregation is concerned that people will be mislead and that a cult could start around a false vision before they have chance to intervene.

Although they’ve embraced the modern world enough to publish this document online, the criteria in it are thoroughly antique. They note that ‘modern mentality and the requirements of critical scientific investigation render it more difficult, if not almost impossible, to achieve with the required speed the judgments that in the past concluded the investigation of such matters.’

In the past only a few people would initially know about an alleged sighting. The local priest would contact his bishop who would contact the Vatican who could take their time to decide if the apparition was real or not, everyone else would fall into line with the ruling and they’d get on with the important business of building a gift shop and making signs that said ‘Pilgrims please form an orderly queue here’. Or they'd burn the visionary as a heretic and that would be an end of it.

If they did decide the apparition was real, they’d send along someone to make sure that the message was correctly interpreted or kept secret – either because it was such garbled nonsense that no one could make head nor tail of it or so they could stage-manage what bit of propaganda they wanted the message to contain. The Three Secrets of Fatima are a good example.

But now there is pesky science and people who do not take the Vatican’s word without questioning, so they have to come up with a handy guide to ruling on holy manifestations to try and nip any false claims in the bud. They would also find it harder to ignore someone who claims to have seen Holy Mary if the vision was tweeted right round the world before they could intervene. And even harder to get away with burning them as a heretic.

They’ve established a set of positive and negative criteria to help distinguish if it really is the Virgin or one of the thousands of saints popping in for a visit, a deluded or criminal human act or perhaps the Evil One trying to mislead the faithful.

Does this check list include anything even vaguely scientific? It does not.

Positive criteria

Moral certitude, or at least great probability of the existence of the fact, acquired by means of a serious investigation.

This is the equivalent of ‘if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck’. There is no indication of what a 'serious' investigation would entail. Even as a first-stage triage, this list is seriously wanting.

Personal qualities of the subject or of the subjects (in particular, psychological equilibrium, honesty and rectitude of moral life, sincerity and habitual docility towards Ecclesiastical Authority.

Is the person who had the vision a) a good upstanding Catholic b) sane and c) not a trouble maker.

Sanity is obviously a useful metric when someone claims to have visions – assuming that God never chooses to send one of his posse to visit the mentally ill.

He apparently also never sends a vision to anyone who does not lead a moral life (in the Catholic sense) so it would seem that He has changed his modus operandi since sending a vision to Saint Paul to make him change his ways. Presumably someone who thinks it's OK to give an abortion to a nine year old who has been raped would not be an acceptable witness.

Habitual docility means that the person never questions the Church and always does what their priest or the Pope tells them. Preferably someone too dim or poorly educated to understand Church doctrine in the first place, let alone question it. This may be why holy manifestations tended to be seen by peasants, children and nuns in the past.

Healthy devotion and abundant and constant spiritual fruit

If the vision leads to the faithful becoming more faithful, to doubters being converted and the power of the Catholic Church being extended, then it’s a good vision.

God would never send Mother Mary or a saint down to criticize the Church. That would be a false vision, obviously.

Negative criteria

Doctrinal errors attributed to God himself, or to the Blessed Virgin Mary, or to some saint in their manifestations, taking into account however the possibility that the subject might have added, even unconsciously, purely human elements or some error of the natural order to an authentic supernatural revelation.

If you wake up to find Mary at the foot of your bed or in a cave (she's fond of caves), ask her to explain exactly what the heresy of the Cathars was. Make sure you write it all down to rule out human error. Correct spelling and grammar will score extra points.

Evidence of a search for profit or gain strictly connected to the fact.

Tricky one. Even visions that are certified genuine by the Vatican lead to financial gain – mostly for the Church. But that’s probably OK. What they don’t want is some attention-seeker or shyster taking money from the credulous faithful by selling unauthorized merchandise.

Gravely immoral acts committed by the subject or his or her followers when the fact occurred or in connection with it.

Bit of a no-brainer, this one. Mary Magdelene appearing to a group of people telling them to have an orgy would be a bit of a give-away, especially if she provided them all with condoms.

Psychological disorder or psychopathic tendencies in the subject, that with certainty influenced on the presumed supernatural fact, or psychosis, collective hysteria or other things of this kind.

They've already covered this, the fact it appears again suggests that it's their get-out clause of choice for any vision they don't approve of or can't control. They know that these days saying the vision was caused by the devil wouldn't play as well as it did five hundred years ago so they co-opt science to do their dirty work for them. There are some who would argue that seeing visions is a symptom of mental illness.

It is of course, entirely unreasonable to expect the Vatican to have strict scientific criteria for testing divine visions. However, it’s not unreasonable to expect them to know a few basic facts about human psychology. They do mention human error but only in the context of doctrinal errors, not relating to the whole experience. They don't doubt that visions happen, only whether they are the right sort of visions.

For example, there is the unreliability of witness statements. It has been shown time and time again that even the best intentioned people consistently get it wrong. People also have a tendency to say what they think the tester wants to hear. It could be hard to distinguish between an over-zealous follower and a con artist who'd done their homework, for example.

The human mind sees intention and agency where there is only coincidence and patterns where there are none. Human perception is notoriously unreliable. Who hasn't seen the face of Jesus in a piece of toast?

How is collective hysteria defined? Presumably they mean a lot of people getting worked up about an unapproved apparition - if it's one they like, then bring on the mass pilgrimages with thousands of people 'seeing' the same thing (like Medjugorje) or queuing to be healed (like Lourdes).

People constantly think they see ghosts or other supernatural phenomena, which scientific research explain as having natural causes (eg weeping statues) or as artefacts of the way our minds work. Why should saintly visions be any different, unless the Vatican believes that God somehow helps them discern fact from fiction because they're in closer contact with him than the average punter.

This isn't about being more rigorous or scientific, it's not even about protecting the faithful, it's about control and protecting the brand. The invention of the printing press was bad enough but the twentieth and twenty first centuries have presented the Vatican with a series of increasingly tough challenges. Access to information and speed of communication are a threat to Vatican hegemony; this flawed and risible attempt to wrest back some control will do nothing to disarm that threat.

On the other hand, this could all be part of an elaborate advertising campaign. Think you saw the Virgin Mary? Should have gone to Specsavers.

Chastity is joyous - the Vatican AIDS Conference

At a two-day international conference on HIV/AIDS in Rome last weekend the Vatican reiterated its stance on condom use – never, in any circumstances.

The Catholic Church’s strategy is a combination of caring for infected people and so-called education of consciences, claiming to put human dignity at the centre of its AIDS policies. It is one of the largest providers of HIV/AIDS care in the world but its unmoving doctrine on condom use is often accused of causing millions of needless deaths and the related suffering they entail. They won't help you avoid getting infected but they will look after you when you are. Which is nice.

The conference was organised by the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers. One of its aims was to address the confusion over the Pope’s statement last year that condom use might be justified in some circumstances to prevent disease transmission. It was made more than clear that’s not what he meant. Absolutely not. Ever. As if they hadn't already covered that one.

Just before the conference, Vatican moral theologian Father Perez-Soba provided a trailer when he published an article saying that condoms make the AIDS epidemic worse because they encourage immoral behaviour. According to him, using a condom shows a lack of respect for the other person.

His advice for married partners where one of them is infected is simple – stop having sex. Ever again. He also wrote that ‘a sexual act carried out with a condom cannot be considered a fully conjugal act.’

Monsignor Suaudeau of the Pontifical Academy for Life backed him up by saying ‘Chastity is joyous’. The Academy's remit is: 'to pay honor to pure science, wherever it is found, and to assure its freedom and to promote its research, which constitute the indispensable basis for progress in science'. Scientists of the world, look away.

The position of the joint United Nations programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) is that the correct and consistent use of condoms is an integral and essential part of HIV prevention, along with education, limiting sexual partners and marital fidelity.

Not everyone has those options. Much effort has gone into educating sex workers – both male and female - around the world into using condoms. Elizabeth Pisano's excellent book The Wisdom of Whores looks at initiatives with sex workers. It also shows just how unrealistic Vatican diktats about sex are in pretty much every way.

It’s hard to see how human dignity can be respected by preaching celibacy (something the Catholic Church itself has proven to be rather weak on) while ignoring human nature and the realities of life. The Vatican’s unchanging position is both unrealistic and inhumane. But to expect anything else from them is also unrealistic. The only real question is why they bothered having the conference.

Vatican Causes Cancer? Part 2: The Verdict

The Vatican has been ordered by Italy's Supreme Court to pay compensation to the town of Cesano near Rome after a long court battle over whether or not Vatican Radio's 60 masts have caused cancer in local children.

The court has found the evidence 'coherent and significant' that children in the area are six times more likely to develop leukemia.

I covered this story last year and all is not what it appears to be.

To sum up what I wrote before:

1. The Italian Navy also has masts in the area

2. The data submitted to the court is highly flawed.

3. There is no good evidence that masts cause cancer or of how cells are damaged by radio waves (see my original article for links to Quackwatch).

4. Italy has one of the highest rates of childhood cancer (leukemia and lymphoma) in the world.

5. There is insufficient data on the Cesano region to compare with Italy as a whole to tell if the rates really are higher.

The consumer association backing the residents' claim has said that 'Finally justice is done'. Vatican Radio has said that it is 'disappointed' by the ruling.

Parents with sick children can't be blamed for looking for someone or something to blame, some way of making sense of what has happened to them to restore a sense of order in the world. Compensation may make them feel they have more control over the situation and are not so much victims. But blaming the wrong cause means that the real cause goes unexplored.

While there may be a certain irony in the Vatican being called to account for something it didn't do while (so far) getting away with something it did do (sanction the abuse of thousands of children), irony's gain is science's loss.

Vatican Causes Cancer?

The Vatican has been accused of giving children cancer. Highly amusing as it is to think of a radioactive Pope spreading Vaticancer, he's too busy with all the child abuse cover-ups and conning the UK taxpayer into spending up to £100 million on his visit to waste energy emitting Papal Death Rays. He is getting on a bit, after all.

Professor Andrea Micheli has written a 300 page report focussing on 19 deaths from leukemia or lymphoma between 1980 and 2003 in the Cesano area north of Rome. Vatican Radio has 60 masts nearby in Santa Maria di Galeria. Micheli's investigation was ordered by a Roman court five years ago after concerns were raised about an increased incidence of cancer in the area. It's not clear exactly who was concerned.

He claims that children under 14 living within a 7.5km radius of the masts have a raised cancer risk. As a result of his research, six Vatican Radio officials are under investigation for manslaughter.

The charges mean that this is not just yet another lame conspiracy theorist attempt to link masts or electromagnetic waves and cancer or the usual Daily Mail cancer scare.

Quackwatch has very thoroughly shown why there is no conclusive link.

Moreover, the Italian Navy also operates masts in the area but Micheli insists that it's the Vatican masts that are to blame. Perhaps there is some added toxic ingredient being emitted because of what they are broadcasting. As Quackwatch says:'what they emit is not understood by the public. Nor can they be felt, tasted, seen or touched. This makes them mysterious, easily portrayable as threatening'. Temptation to draw a parallel with certain aspects of religion will be resisted.

There are other problems with Micheli's findings. Firstly, the research was submitted to a court, not for peer review. The contents were leaked.

A research paper that is available without leakage in the American Journal of Epidemiology called Adult and Childhood Leukemia near a high-powered radio station in Rome, Italy finds that rates were higher than expected but that 'The study has limitations because of the small number of cases and the lack of exposure data.' It adds that 'no causal implication can be drawn'.

And the Lancet finds that: 'In the European population, about 1% of all malignant neoplasms arise in patients younger than 20 years. This low frequency represents a major difficulty for studies of putative risk factors'.

An article in The Hematology Journal called Expected number of childhood cancers in Italy from 2001 to 2015 states: 'The total number of children with incident cancer in Italy has never been specifically estimated. Specialized population-based Childhood Cancer Registries have only been operating in Piedmont (CCRP) and in the Marche region, while general population cancer registries cover about 20% of the Italian population'.

This means that there is insufficient data to tell if cancer rates have gone up above the expected rate compared with other mast-free parts of Italy. It's hard to gauge what's higher than expected when there is no accurate definition of 'expected'.

Leukemia and lymphoma are the commonest childhood cancers. Italy has nearly the highest rate of them in the whole world.

In Europe, the overall incidence increased by 1% a year from 1970-99 in children and by 1.5% in adolescents. The average incidence in Europe is 140 per million for children up to 14. That's 1.4 children per ten thousand. According to the American Journal of Epidemiology research, nearly 50,000 people live in a 10km area around the station.

[edited 22/3/11: In the Perugia region, about 150km north of Rome, for example, around 1.3 children in ten thousand get leukemia or lymphoma every year.

Nineteen children got leukemia or lymphoma in a twenty three year period in the Cesano area. In the Perugia region in the same period, you would expect just under 30 children to get them.]

While the data from these various sources are not directly comparable, it looks very much like nineteen deaths is not a suspicious figure.

This is probably the one and only time I will ever defend the Vatican.

Sexual Abuse of Women in the Church

There has been widespread media coverage of the abuse of children by Catholic priests and few people are now unaware of it.

There has been almost no publicity about the abuse of women by male members of the clergy and, despite the evidence, the Church appears to have done nothing.

Some women do have fully consensual relationships with male clergy but they are a small minority. When their stories make the media, they are usually of the more lurid 'priest has mistress and secret children' variety.

There is some abuse of adult men but a 2008 survey in America found that 96% of the victims were female.

Abuse falls into two categories, congregants and nuns.

Research findings about the prevalence of this abuse vary. One American report states that 'although clergy of any denomination can sexually exploit children, teens, men or women, over 95% of victims of sexual exploitation by clergy are adult women'. Another study found that 3.1% of regular women congregants (women in the congregation) had suffered sexual abuse.

Although the figures vary, there is plenty of evidence that this is a major problem. There are many websites and organisations for the abused, for example SNAP, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. This and many other websites, like the MACSAS one (Ministry and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors) has first-hand testimonies.

One reason for the lack of media coverage is perhaps that child abuse makes for more shocking headlines. Another reason is that, while evidence for child abuse is increasingly being revealed and the churches are being forced to confront it, the abuse of women is still largely hidden by religious bodies. But the evidence is clear.

'There is no question that abuse of women [by priests] has been vastly under-reported' according to AW Richard Snipe, a former priest and psychotherapist who has studied priests' sex lives for over 30 years. 'There's a tremendous bias against women in the US - and the world - and a tremendous callousness about sexual abuse against women.'

Gary Schoener, a Minneapolis psychologist whose walk-in counselling centre has worked on more than 2000 cases of clerical sex abuse, says the majority of abusers that he and his staff deal with (from several denominations) victimize girls and women. Yet, he says, public perception is that far more males are abused, and that the harm they suffer is more serious than that experienced by females: 'Women and girls are every bit as much at risk as boys and men. But the sexual abuse of a boy is treated far more seriously, and is considered a far worse offence'.

In the early 1990s, an American researcher who was looking at previously published work on sexual victimisation and the clergy found two different studies on sexual harassment. One involved a survey of female rabbis, the other of women in the United Methodist Church.

73% of the women rabbis and 77% of the UMC women said they had been a victim of sexual harassment. (Abuse in other religions is beyond the remit of this article, but the figure is included for comparison).

This is not just an American problem. An article in the Observer in 2003 said that 'While the Church of England remains in turmoil over the sexuality of its bishops, some believe the mounting catalogue of sexual abuse against women is the real untold scandal of the Church. (...) Britain's leading investigator of sexual abuse in the Church is Margaret Kennedy, a former social worker who was a pioneer in raising the issue of child abuse in the Roman Catholic and other Christian churches (...) Kennedy believes the sexual abuse of adults by clergymen is just as serious as child abuse'.

The article continues: 'The evidence reveals a disturbing picture of how vulnerable women have turned to churchmen for pastoral help, only to be preyed upon. (...) Even a woman priest can be preyed on. A devastated Dr Tanya Jenkins, the vicar of Llangefni on Anglesey in North Wales, is still off work three years after she was sexually assaulted by Canon Geoffrey Hewitt of Bangor Cathedral'.

Another problem facing abused women is that religious leaders to whom they report abuse characterize it as 'an affair' and often blame the women for seducing the man. Women's sexuality has traditionally been seen as dangerous by some sections of the church (and other religions), dating right back to Eve.

Blaming the woman or downplaying the importance of the abuse are convenient tactics rooted in misogyny. The fact that misogyny still underlies many societies, albeit in disguised or watered-down form, makes this an easy excuse. The low rate of conviction for rape may make it even harder for women to speak out. More women are reporting rape in the UK but only about a quarter of suspects are charged. Around 12% of cases reach court and only about 6% result in conviction.

Many sections of the Church still cast women as second class citizens who must submit to men. There was a story recently about a Church of England vicar telling women that they should be silent and subservient to their men. Even when the sexism is not obvious, there is a sense that these are adults who can look after themselves and if they didn't - why not? They should have just said no.

Schoener (op cit) says: 'The church is so dominated by men that there's a tendency to portray girls as provoking the crimes against themselves. The depositions read like rape cases used to: Did you enjoy it? What were you wearing?'

Adult women who have been abused face the toughest fight of any, Schoener believes. Their abuse by priests - often during spiritual or marital counselling sessions - wins little public attention compared to abuse of children. In addition, they are often held responsible for the relationship.

Kennedy says: 'One of the major problems is that the perpetrator is a male member of the clergy who is seen as above reproach. The woman is often seen as the seductress who has tempted the priest into a sexual relationship.'

Great pressure is brought on the women to keep quiet about the abuse. Kennedy found that: 'The level of violence is surprising and the need to silence the women at all times was a universal story. Women told of the priest/minister getting angry if they dared to tell anyone anything about the 'relationship'. They were told time and again that they were special people and that the minister depended on them. The power and control exerted by the ministers over the women was multi-factored'.

When women do report the cases, the results are predictable. One Cardinal told a woman who had been abused and made pregnant by a priest that she should have an abortion. 'Bishops try to turn the discourse to one of boundary issues, that priests and ministers have just got their boundaries confused. It is not about boundaries, the stories these women told were of rape, assault and violence; these were crimes, not boundary issues,' said Kennedy.

Not surprisingly, 'The women reported complete confusions at what was happening. Some were told that rape was good for them.'

The consequences of abuse are many and devastating.

In America, NOW (National Organisation for Women) has called for the sexual exploitation of women by priests to be criminalized. Their statement includes: 'adult victims of clergy sexual exploitation are routinely blamed for this abuse and revictimized by the public, severely ostracized by their own congregations, and disbelieved by religious authority figures from whom they seek solace and protection, resulting in devastating social isolation and confusion'

and: 'in addition to coping with the physical and emotional impacts of sexual violation, victims of sexual exploitation by clergy often also suffer loss of faith, loss of religious tradition, loss of spouse, loss of employment within religious organizations or with faith-affiliated educational institutions, self- blame by the victim, and loss of support from family, congregation and community'.

Abuse of nuns by the clergy is even more concealed. Researcher Ann Wolf said: 'The bishops appear to be only looking at the issue of child sexual abuse, but the problem is bigger than that. Catholic sisters are being violated, in their ministries, at work, in pastoral counselling'.

One survey of nuns done in the US in 1996 was never publicized. It was paid for, in part, by several orders of Catholic nuns. The findings were published in two religious research journals in 1998 but have never been reported in the mainstream press.

The researchers believe the numbers are more likely to be an underestimate than an overestimate of the true prevalence of sexual victimization: 'The fear and pain of disclosure would be sufficient enough to discourage responding in some sisters'.

In 2001, the Catholic Church in Rome was forced to admit that it knew priests from at least 23 countries had been abusing nuns after confidential reports were obtained by an American Catholic newspaper. Some of the reports had been in circulation for at least seven years. The US article was based on documents some of which senior women in religious orders and priests had presented to the Vatican over a period of a decade.

Most of the abuse occurred in Africa where priests who had previously gone to prostitutes turned to nuns to avoid contracting AIDS. In some cases, nuns who became pregnant were pressured to have abortions. In one case, a nun died while having an abortion and her abuser led the funeral mass. Another case involved 29 nuns from one order who all became pregnant to priests in the diocese.

There were also cases of novices who applied to their local priest or bishop for certificates of good Catholic practice which they needed to carry out their vocation. In return, they were made to have sex.

Sister Maura O'Donahue, an AIDS co-ordinator for the charity Cafod quoted a case in 1991 of a community superior being approached by priests requesting that nuns be made available to them for sexual favours. 'When the superior refused, the priests explained that they would otherwise be obliged to go to the village to find women and might thus get AIDS.' She heard cases of priests encouraging nuns to take the pill, telling them it would prevent HIV. Others 'actually encouraged abortions for the sisters' and Catholic hospital and medical staff reported pressure from priests to carry out terminations for nuns and other young women.

When Sister Marie McDonald, mother superior of the Missionaries of Our Lady of Africa put together a paper and addressed bishops on the problem, many of them felt it was disloyal of the sisters to send reports. She said: 'The sisters claim they have done so time and time again. Sometimes they were not well received. In some instances they are blamed for what happened. Even when they are listened to sympathetically nothing much seems to be done.' While the offending priests are usually moved or sent away, the women are normally chased out of their religious order. Some end up as prostitutes.

In the same way that some Catholic apologists have tried to deflect attention from child abuse by pointing out that it happens in other religions and in families, Father Giulio Albanese said 'Missionaries are human beings, who are often under immense psychological pressure in situations of war and ongoing violence. On one hand it's important to condemn this horror and it's important to tell the truth, but we must not emphasize this at the expense of the work done by the majority, many of whom have laid down their lives for witness.'

The Pope's official spokesman at the time, Joaquin Navarro Valls said: 'The problem is known and involves a restricted geographical area. Certain negative situations must not overshadow the often heroic faith of the overwhelming majority of religious, nuns and priests.'

Sister O'Donohue has evidence of abuse not just in Africa but also in India, Ireland, Italy , the Philippines and the United States.

Even if it were just in Africa, this dismissal combines the usual misogyny with racism, implying that it happens in a more 'backward' culture and that these women are somehow less important than European nuns. While numbers of nuns are falling in most of the world, they are growing in Africa.

In 2001 the European parliament passed an unprecedented motion, blaming the Vatican for the rapes of African nuns in the 1990s. The motion:

• Calls for those responsible for these crimes to be arrested and brought to justice; calls on the judicial authorities of the 23 countries cited in the reports to ensure that all appropriate judicial action is taken to establish the truth about these cases of violence against women;
• Calls on the Holy See to take all allegations of sexual abuse within its organisations seriously, to co-operate with the judicial authorities and to remove the perpetrators from office;
• Calls on the Holy See to reinstate those female officials who have been removed from their posts for drawing their supervisors’ attention to these abuses and afford the victims the necessary protection from and compensation for any discrimination which might ensue.

Head of the Vatican Congregation for Religious Life, Cardinal Martinez Somalo, set up a committee to look into the problem. So far, nothing much seems to have changed.

Celibacy is regularly blamed for all clerical abuse, of both adults and children, but this is clearly a simplistic response. In the study (op cit) that found 3.1% of regular women congregants had suffered sexual abuse, 2.2% of women (the majority) were abused by married clergy. The evidence above of abuse by clergy in non-celibate religions and sects also shows this cannot be the whole story.

There are certain common patterns of abusive behaviour. It is commonly not a one-off opportunistic event. It often happens gradually, with the woman being desensitized to increasingly inappropriate behaviour while being rewarded for her tolerance of it. Offenders may use religious language, prayer and Bible quotations to justify and sanction their actions.

Research shows that, unlike men, women go to clergy for many reasons rather than to more suitably qualified professionals - 86% rather than 12% to professionals. Chaplains in the military and at colleges may particularly fulfil a more pastoral need. This is one factor making women easier prey than men.

The clergyman's position of power and the trust the woman has in him may cause her to doubt her own ability to interpret his intentions when she would have instantly understood in a relationship with someone else. Many women surveyed said that they were uncertain about what was happening; their trust of the abuser was stronger than their trust in their own judgement. This self-doubt can lead to fear of making public a situation that turns out to be harmless and being humiliated or ostracized. This is even more the case for nuns whose whole lives and identities rest on their faith. The cognitive dissonance can be massive, leading to denial and total inability to face the reality of the situation.

In some cases, women's partners and family encourage them to trust the religious leader and spend time alone with him, seeing it as a privilege both for her and the family to get his attention.

Many women are already in a vulnerable position, turning to religious leaders for counselling or support in a time of family crisis or loss. In some cases, he is also a father figure, increasing the level of trust.

He may use knowledge from the woman's confessions or private conversations about their personal lives to manipulate them, to keep a hold over them and force silence, effectively blackmailing and intimidating them.

The bottom line is that men in positions of authority have the motive, means and opportunity for abuse and some of them take advantage of that. Religious leaders may find abuse easier to get away with than men in some other professions because they do not have to account to anyone for how they spend their time. Their charisma and exalted position in the community divert suspicion, the woman's evidence is discredited, downplayed, denied and concealed. Even when the truth is revealed, it is often a Pyrrhic victory, with the woman still coming out the loser.

Until the abuse of women is treated as seriously as clerical child abuse by the media, the law, the churches and society in general it is unlikely that much will change.