Catholic Church: Psychologist Bettina Arndt questions how priests can be trained to cope with enforced celibacy pressures

For decades, sex therapist Bettina Arndt has been helping Australian couples develop a better understanding of their sexuality.

But the clinical psychologist admits to being a little dumbfounded about how the Catholic Church in Australia can train its priests to better cope with the pressures of a lifestyle of enforced celibacy.

"I'm not quite sure how they propose to go about that," Ms Arndt told The World Today.

"I mean one would assume part of that is to talk about the fact that as a heterosexual male you're going to have urges, you're going to have desires," Ms Arndt said.

"There are options for dealing with that like masturbation of course, which won't get you into trouble, but obviously there are situations where to act on those urges it is totally inappropriate.

"I mean that's the sort of thing you would want to discuss."

Ms Arndt's comments were prompted by the release of a report from the Catholic Church's Truth, Justice and Healing Council which has been coordinating its response to the royal commission into child sexual abuse.

The report breaks new ground for the church with its finding that the vow of celibacy may have contributed to acts of sex abuse carried out by its clergymen.

"It's obviously a very frustrating situation for many people and it's caused a lot of problems within the Catholic Church," Ms Arndt said.

"I think there are many, many Catholic priests who deal with this problem extremely well and they anticipate this is going to be the situation they're in and they cope with that very well and that's the vast majority.

"We're only talking a minority, a minority who really struggle with this."

Ongoing training recommended for priests

It is believed the report is the first official acknowledgement of a link between celibacy and sexual abuse by the church anywhere in the world.

However it stops well short of recommending the church scrap the vow of celibacy expected of its priests, with the chief executive of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, Francis Sullivan, wary of anything that would "turn the church on its head".

Instead the report recommended "ongoing training and development, including psycho-sexual development" for priests and other religious figures.

There was no detail in the report about what that should constitute.

"I'm not sure what they mean by that," Ms Arndt said. "Obviously that would include discussions around the sort of power issues and the problems of being in a powerful but intimate relationship with young people, which is inevitable given the role that some priests play and talking around the sort of ethical issues there.

"But I don't know what you can do about teaching priests to anticipate the sort of frustrations involved in that role. I'd like to think what we could be doing is helping men in that situation to have people to talk to about the frustrations that are involved.

"One of the things that worries me about the way this issue is discussed is that a man who is struggling with it may feel he is in an even more vulnerable situation if he goes and talks to someone about how to cope with that.

"I mean he'll be regarded immediately as a paedophile if he talks about the fact that he's finding it difficult to deal with young people who may be, you know, tempting him in some way."

While the report appears set to fuel calls for the Catholic Church to abandon obligatory celibacy, Ms Arndt doubts that would provide a magic bullet for reducing the rate of sexual abuse offences committed by its clergy.

She also pointed out that, as a lifestyle, celibacy was more common than most people acknowledged.

"In normal society there are an awful lot of heterosexual married men who are in a state of involuntary celibacy, and let's not forget that. They are forced to deal with it and it's not something they anticipated in their marriages."

Abuse of children in many forms

What troubles Ms Arndt more is the abuse of power by those placed in positions of authority by the church who then in turn prey on the vulnerable.

She is also concerned that the focus on sexual abuse is causing other forms of abuse to be overlooked.

"I just think as a society we are obsessed by sexual abuse. If you look at some of the reports that have been coming through on abuse in institutions, [there is] horrendous physical abuse of children, horrendous emotional abuse and that doesn't seem to matter," she said.

"The only thing that matters [to people] is if a child gets touched in a sexual way, and I don't get that. I don't get why we're so distorting what are the real risks to children and it's something to do with our inability as a society to deal with matters sexual."

But Ms Arndt said she was not denying there was a problem.

"I'm not saying there isn't a problem and there are real issues of concern with regard to abuse of children, with regard to abuse within the Catholic Church. I'm not denying that for one minute.

"I think it's really important we look carefully at that, but we are actually totally distorting the real risk to children in terms of sexual abuse because most abuse takes place in the family, not in institutions.

"Children are far more at risk form family situations and particularly from the growing risk of strangers being involved in the families where children are being raised.

"Mum's boyfriend, partners of single mums - that is the new and ever-growing risk for children that is never discussed."