Talk:Saint Luke Institute

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Affiliate – St. Luke’s Centre, England

The St. Luke’s Centre (SLC) is an independent, sister organization located in Manchester, England, that supports the health and well-being of Catholic clergy and religious throughout the United Kingdom and Europe. The centre was formed at the request of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, developed by Saint Luke Institute leadership in cooperation with Catholic leadership in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and operates in close association with Saint Luke Institute.

The centre provides outpatient psychotherapy and spiritual direction, week-long clinical assessments for priests and religious in psychological difficulty, educational and consultation services, and a continuing care program for those who have completed a residential program elsewhere. After a clinical assessment, if residential treatment is indicated, referrals are usually made to Saint Luke Institute in Maryland, U.S. One of SLC’s main functions is to perform candidate assessments for aspirants to the priesthood or religious life. A considerable number of dioceses in England, for example, use SLC to screen its candidates for the priesthood.

St. Luke’s Centre is a registered charity, with its own board of trustees. It operates in compliance with national and international standards for specialized risk assessment and other psychological assessments.

-- Jytdog (talk) 20:47, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

SYN and unsourced

The following is either unsourced, is WP:SYN ( the 1998 meta-analysis doesn't mention St Lukes) or unverifiable (I can find no evidence of the 2006 presentation, and in any case we don't base WP content on conference abstracts) and was moved here per WP:PRESERVE. Per WP:BURDEN please do not restore without finding independent, reliable sources, checking the content against them, and citing them, and ensuring that this content has appropriate WP:WEIGHT in the article overall.

Criticism and controversy

Criticism of Saint Luke Institute has generally revolved around the issue of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Although the large majority of clients at Saint Luke are treated for other issues, some have been treated for child sexual abuse.

The treatment of perpetrators of child sexual abuse has been a source of conflict around the U.S. Media reports often quote individuals who argue that pedophilia (a sexual attraction to pre-pubescent minors) cannot be “cured” and they object to any claims it can be. Clinicians who treat offenders often agree that these individuals cannot be “cured” but argue that relapse studies suggest that some offenders do respond well to treatment and, although they are not “cured,” they are less likely to re-offend. Thus, these clinicians argue not for a “cure” but for “successful treatment.” Several clinical studies indicate that treatment outcomes vary greatly depending upon discernible characteristics among pedophiles and ephebophiles (a sexual attraction to post-pubescent minors).

In 2006 at the annual Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers conference, Gary Thompson, Ph.D. et al. presented a paper entitled “Differences in Relapse Risk Among Priest Child Molesters.” They presented data from the Institute which said that the Institute had, from 1985 to 2005, treated 375 priests and male religious who had sexually molested minors and 22 were known to have relapsed (5.9%). They gathered this relapse data using not only re-arrest rates (typically used in relapse statistics), but also information from media reports, supervisors and peer reports, self-reports, and information provided by dioceses/religious orders. The Institute relapse rates are low, which likely are the result of its extended treatment and follow-up plus the nature of its clients whom they claim "tend to be higher functioning than typical incarcerated populations" that typically yield much higher relapse rates.

In 1997, the Institute began a policy of explicitly recommending to dioceses and religious orders that any priest with a confirmed history of the sexual abuse of minors, no matter how well he had done in treatment, never be returned to unsupervised contact with minors, ministry with minors or any one-to-one contact with minors. The recommendations of the Institute were simply recommendations since ministry decisions are made by the person's sponsoring diocese or religious order.

In 2002, with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, this restriction was expanded by the U.S. Bishops to include any form of public ministry (allegations also are to be reported to civil authorities). Thus, any kind of future ministry was denied to these offending priests.

This “zero tolerance” clause remains a source of controversy for some in the Church. While it means parishioners should feel reassured that no one is in ministry who has harmed a child, when the Church dismisses these men from the priesthood, the Church loses control over them and these offenders go unsupervised and unaccounted for. The argument is whether or not these offending priests are then less or more of a risk to minors than the previous policy of putting them in a supervised ministry with no contact with minors.

References

-- Jytdog (talk) 21:40, 18 June 2017 (UTC)