Dear Fr. _____,

Thanks for your note.  I had noticed the study earlier and have been rooting around in the sources Fr. Paul used to generate his data.  Some of his observations - such as the possible recent increase in abuse [of adults as contrasted with minors] - appear valid and important; but I have serious reservations concerning his discussion of percentages of priests and seminarians with SSA.  He relies heavily on a poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times; and I know for certain - from discussion with my presbyteral colleagues - that any priest who is familiar with the Times' attitude towards the Catholic Church would be a fool to participate in such a poll: especially in light of the inevitably-compromised "confidential" nature of such polls.    I find it very hard to believe that the data the The Times (of all institutions!)  obtained could be truly representative: and their response rate was only around 38%.

   Also, where did he obtain data for the percentages of priests with SSA in the fifties?  That is not clear in his study; and given the implications of acknowledging SSA in those times, it would be hard to imagine how a sample could truly be representative. All the statistical calculations in the world can't improve data if your respondents are afraid of being honest.

    But he certainly raises important questions.

Dear Father,

I shared your observations with Paul Sullins, but did not forward your email.  His reply:

He raises some good points, but he is mostly mistaken about the LA Times survey and makes some false assumptions about survey imputation.  Their survey organization is separate from the editorial stances of the paper.  They drew a large two-stage random sample that is clearly representative; compensated for the low response rate (which they knew they would get, in part due to attitudes such as those expressed by this priest) by increasing the survey rate, attaining over 1800 responses.  And I compute SSA in the fifties from the older men who responded to the survey in 2002 (not by a survey in the 1950s!), which also collected the year of ordination.  This is standard imputation procedure, and (barring some large unobserved difference in mortality due to SSA) quite reliable.  If he or anyone is interested enough, they can read a much more complete description of the survey in Andrew Greeley's book Priests: A Calling in Crisis, which makes extensive use of this survey.  As I cite in the paper.

The basic point the brother priest misses is the difference between validity and reliability.  (Tell him he should have come to the Courage Truth and Love Conference, where I explained this point in detail in Q & A!)  A measurement might be inaccurate, but if it is equally inaccurate on repeated measurement, it still gives us a reliable indicator of trends.  Think of a yardstick that is off by several inches (so is "invalid"); but if you measure the height of four or five walls by that same yardstick, you can still tell which walls are larger or smaller, and by the correct proportion or very close to it.  So, very likely the survey understates the true proportion of SSA priests (due to concealment), but it understates it by the same amount, or very close to the same amount, over all periods observed; so it is a very reliable measure, even if it is not fully valid.

Having said that, I do agree that the Times survey has weaknesses.  In fact, I am [on] record for criticizing Greeley for using it (because there were better data available for the questions he addressed, which are very different than the ones I address in the paper).  The bottom line justification for using it is, it is the only source of information we have on this question.  We have proposed and are hoping to get funding ($75k) for a new, better survey, by which we could measure the share of SSA priests and related issues today, since 2002, and improve on the deficiencies (and datedness) of the Times survey.  

Thanks for sharing it with brother priests.  I treasure the conversation.

Paul

xcxxcxxc  F ” “ This Webpage was created for a workshop held at Saint Andrew's Abbey, Valyermo, California in 2012....x....  ’ “”.