Using Sexual Perversion as a Weapon

In World History of Psychiatry, author John G. Howles notes, �As long as psychiatric problems were those of the �soul,�� the clergy and philosophers �could be professionally concerned with such problems.� To re-define man�s problems and criminal conduct in �medical� or �biological� terms was half the trick in wrenching spiritual healing firmly into the domain of psychiatry. The other half of the trick was using this same premise to lure churches into handing over their sexually disturbed clergy for �professional help.�

In 1951, the Institute of Living psychiatric facility in Connecticut, U.S.A., hired as its psychiatrist-in-chief, Francis J. Braceland, later to become president of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). According to an article in The New Yorker in 2003, Braceland called on Catholic bishops to shed their �traditional antipathy to the teachings of psychiatry and to seek medical help for troubled priests.� With Braceland�s high standing among the bishops, the Institute of Living began receiving referrals.

In 1986, a priest with a known history of pedophilia and psychiatric treatment was accused of child molestation. He was referred to the Institute of Living for psychiatric help. In his discharge records, psychiatrist Robert Swords stated: �It was not a classical case of pedophilia, in that the abuse was sporadic and eventually did stop and had a playful, childlike quality to it. It was not sexually stimulating or eroticized, and it was not sadistic nor without remorse.� Psychiatrists advised that he could return to his parish, although they said, the final decision lay with the Church.

�The patient reassured us that these impulsive episodes of pedophilia were now under control and he had integrated his life in a more constructive way, since he began getting involved in psychotherapy and seeing a psychiatrist ten years ago,� Swords wrote.

In 1991, there were further complaints of sexual abuse of children by that same priest. Based on psychiatric advice that the priest was �sick,� not criminal, he was referred to another psychiatric facility. There patients were stripped, hooked up to a plethysmograph (a device that when attached to the genitals can measure arousal) and videotaped. The priest eventually admitted to having been a pedophile since the 1960s. In September 2002, the Archdiocese of Boston settled 86 lawsuits against this priest for $10 million�a high price to pay for ruinous psychiatric advice.

As journalist Barry Werth wrote, �The Church�s use of psychiatry or, more precisely, the bishops� policy of sending priests suspected of having molested minors to psychiatrists and psychologists rather than reporting them to the police, has become one of the most disturbing, and costly, elements.�

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