Catholic collective narcissism linked to acceptance of myths about child sexual abuse
“Even though sexual relations between priests and minors have taken place inside the Catholic Church for centuries, the Catholic hierarchy was not always prone to fight against pedophilia in an official way,” said study author Marta Marchlewska, an associate professor and the head of the Political Cognition Lab at the Polish Academy of Sciences.
“In contrast, they put a lot of effort into keeping the existence of such activities hidden from public view to cover up the scandal and protect the positive image of their in-group. Some of the religious officials even suggested that the children are partly to blame for being sexually abused by priests. For example, Polish Archbishop Józef Michalik suggested that a pedophile act manifested itself ‘when a child is looking for love (…) it clings, it searches. It gets lost itself and then draws another person into this’ (Daily Mail Reporter, 2013, para. 9).”
The researchers surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,300 Polish Catholics in which they were asked the extent to which they agreed with various pedophilia myths, such as “Usually, children who say they were sexually abused by a priest are not telling the truth” and “When children get sexually harassed by a priest, it is often because the way they said ‘no’ was unclear.” After six months, the participants were asked to complete the survey again. The final sample consisted of 719 Catholic participants aged between 18 and 91.
“We found that Catholic collective narcissism (i.e., a grandiose image of the in-group that is contingent upon external recognition of its worth) may be responsible for adopting pedophilia myths,” Marchlewska told PsyPost. “In other words, Catholics who identified with their religious in-group in a narcissistic way were more prone to adopt beliefs that justify sexual violence against children committed by in-group members (i.e., Catholic priests).”
“We found that the association between Catholic collective narcissism and pedophilia myth acceptance was reciprocal which suggests that not only narcissistic identity may boost pedophilia myths but also adopting pedophilia myths may boost collective narcissism. In line with this logic, messages priming denial of faults committed by in-group members may further lead to narcissistic identity which is not good either for outgroups or the mere ingroup.”
https://www.psypost.org/2022/12/catholic...buse-64490
“Even though sexual relations between priests and minors have taken place inside the Catholic Church for centuries, the Catholic hierarchy was not always prone to fight against pedophilia in an official way,” said study author Marta Marchlewska, an associate professor and the head of the Political Cognition Lab at the Polish Academy of Sciences.
“In contrast, they put a lot of effort into keeping the existence of such activities hidden from public view to cover up the scandal and protect the positive image of their in-group. Some of the religious officials even suggested that the children are partly to blame for being sexually abused by priests. For example, Polish Archbishop Józef Michalik suggested that a pedophile act manifested itself ‘when a child is looking for love (…) it clings, it searches. It gets lost itself and then draws another person into this’ (Daily Mail Reporter, 2013, para. 9).”
The researchers surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,300 Polish Catholics in which they were asked the extent to which they agreed with various pedophilia myths, such as “Usually, children who say they were sexually abused by a priest are not telling the truth” and “When children get sexually harassed by a priest, it is often because the way they said ‘no’ was unclear.” After six months, the participants were asked to complete the survey again. The final sample consisted of 719 Catholic participants aged between 18 and 91.
“We found that Catholic collective narcissism (i.e., a grandiose image of the in-group that is contingent upon external recognition of its worth) may be responsible for adopting pedophilia myths,” Marchlewska told PsyPost. “In other words, Catholics who identified with their religious in-group in a narcissistic way were more prone to adopt beliefs that justify sexual violence against children committed by in-group members (i.e., Catholic priests).”
“We found that the association between Catholic collective narcissism and pedophilia myth acceptance was reciprocal which suggests that not only narcissistic identity may boost pedophilia myths but also adopting pedophilia myths may boost collective narcissism. In line with this logic, messages priming denial of faults committed by in-group members may further lead to narcissistic identity which is not good either for outgroups or the mere ingroup.”
https://www.psypost.org/2022/12/catholic...buse-64490
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
