Child Sexual Grooming of Catholic Clergy: A Comparison between Victims Allegedly Abused by Clergy with Single versus Multiple Victims

ABSTRACT

There is evidence that clergy who commit child sexual abuse (CSA) may utilize sexual grooming behaviors in the offense process consistent with a content-validated model (Sexual Grooming Model; SGM). Although research has examined differences in characteristics between clergy with single versus multiple CSA victims, little is known about how sexual grooming behaviors may vary between these groups. The present study utilized a large sample of alleged clergy sexual abuse incidents (n = 10,667) to examine the differences in reported sexual grooming behaviors for victims who experienced abuse by an individual who had a single (V-SVOs) or multiple (V-MVOs) victims. As part of a larger study, files of victim reports of CSA were reviewed from 195 dioceses/eparchies and 140 religious institutes in the United States; these data were analyzed based on behaviors in the SGM for the present study. Overall, the findings showed that the two groups (V-SVOs and V-MVOs) experienced similar tactics throughout the sexual grooming process outlined by the SGM. However, there were some differences for certain tactics within the gaining access and isolation, trust development, and desensitization to sexual contact and physical touch stages of sexual grooming. The implications for prevention, policy, and treatment, as well as future directions of research, are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Child sexual abuse
• sexual grooming
• clergy
• victim
• prevention

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ The homogeneity of variances assumption was violated for the data related to the age the abuse began and ended, and the length of time between the end of the abuse and the reporting, as indicated by a significant Levene’s test for equality of variances (p < .05). Thus, Welch t-test results are reported for these variables.

² It has been suggested that depending on the context of the research, even small effect sizes can have important implications for theory and practice (e.g., Funder & Ozer, 2019; Götz et al., 2022); we believe the small effects found in this study are indeed still relevant given the information can help improve ways in which we better identify and prevent CSA, although we recognize that future research is needed.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Notes on contributors

Georgia M. Winters

Georgia M. Winters, Ph.D., is an assistant professor and director in the Forensic Psychology Master’s program in the School of Psychology and Counselling at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. Her research interests including sexual violence prevention, sexual grooming behaviors, and paraphilic interests and disorders.

Elizabeth L. Jeglic

Elizabeth L. Jeglic Ph.D. is a professor of Psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. Her research focuses on issues related to sexual violence prevention, sexual grooming and evidence based public policy.

Karen J. Terry

Karen J. Terry is a Professor in the Department Criminal Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and on the faculty of the Criminal Justice Doctoral Program at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She holds a doctorate in criminology from Cambridge University. Her primary research interest is sexual offending and victimization, particularly abuse of children in an institutional setting.

Kait Gilleran

Kait Gilleran, M.A., received their master's degree in Forensic Psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University. They are currently graduate student in the Clinical Psychology, Psy.D. program at William Paterson University.