UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
Aug. 02, 2012
By Monica Clark
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — When the U.S. bishops adopted the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in 2002 to put an end to the sexual abuse of children by priests and others in the church, they committed to using “adequate screening and evaluative techniques in deciding the fitness of candidates for ordination.”
Such screening most often includes psychological testing and analysis, something that psychologist Thomas Plante has been doing for dioceses and religious communities for 25 years.
Psychological screening can’t provide a 100 percent guarantee that once ordained, a man won’t subsequently abuse children, said Plante, who has screened nearly 700 seminarians. But it goes a long way toward ensuring that only men who are emotionally healthy and least likely to engage in aberrant sexual behavior are admitted to the priesthood.
“Through screening we can make sure that anyone with a predilection to harm kids is prevented from entering ministry,” said Plante, a professor of psychology and director of the Spirituality and Health Institute at Santa Clara University here.
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