Do Religious Institutions Attract Sexual Predators?

OPINION | Do Religious Institutions Attract Sexual Predators?


7 Dec 2025 • 4:00 PM MYT


TheRealNehruism
An award-winning Newswav creator, Bebas News columnist & ex-FMT columnist

Image credit: Malay Mail


I was reading earlier an article by Newswav’s own creator Fa Abdul about why there are so many religious men that are sexual predators, and it reminded me of something that I saw in a Joe Rogan video once.


In the Joe Rogan video, Joe observed that when he walked into Vatican City and looked at the entire art that was richly displayed there, he couldn’t help but conclude that everything that he was seeing was basically the treasure trove of a paedophile cult.


This sounded bizarre when I first heard it – but then when I reflected on the pictures and sculptures that you see in Vatican City – of naked depictions of childlike angels or sculptures of nude youths – and it occured to me that Joe might have a point.


After all, that pedophilia was rampant in the Church is also a matter of open secret.


A report published in 2015 by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada found physical and sexual abuse was rampant at the schools run by the Catholic Church.


Child abuse scandals have been exposed in Catholic churches around the world in recent decades. The film Spotlight, which focused on a team of reporters and editors at the Boston Globe who relentlessly investigated a shocking child molestation cover-up by the Catholic Church, won the Best Picture Oscar in 2016.


Even former Philippine president Duterte claimed that he, as well as his classmates, were regularly sexually abused in school by a priest.


In other words, like Fa Abdul, Joe Rogan was also seeing the correlation between religious men in religious institutions and sexually predatorial behavior.


Fa Abdul might be observing the phenomenon in Islamic institutions and religious men – tahfiz schools, ustaz, preachers and penceramah bebas – while Joe Rogan might be observing it in clerics and priests in the Catholic institutions – but the similarity between their two observations is uncanny - that that there is an unmistakable correlation between men who dedicate themselves to religion and sexual abuse, especially involving children, or pedophilia.


Now why is this the case, I wonder?


Is it true that the more religious or philosophical you get, the more perverted you become in terms of your sexuality or sexual preference?


Somehow, I certainly doubt it – in my experience, an increase in religious or philosophical interest will actually attenuate your appetite for the world – which not only includes your sexual appetite, but appetite of all sorts, including that for food, drinks, company, merry making, pleasures, relationships, money, power, status, authority and everything else that generally occupies the interest of a non-philosophical or non-religious person.


I think this view of mine will even be self-evident in your own experience.


If you reflect on your own appetites before and after you became more religiously or philosophically inclined, I truly feel that to the extent that you have become more philosophical or religious, to that extent you might find a drop in your appetite for the world.


As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to argue that the first step into philosophy or religion is likely a sense of disenchantment towards what the world can offer – as long as you think that you can satisfy your heart and mind with what the world has to offer, you will likely not be much interested in philosophy or religion. It is when you find that the world – despite of all of its wine and pleasures and gold – is somehow unsatisfying, that you will likely start developing an interest in philosophy and religion.


That being the case, I am much more inclined to believe that it is not religion or philosophy that inclines a person towards sexually predatorial behaviour, but that it is a sexual predator that might be attracted to a religious institution.


Why?


Well, I think one reason is that a sexual predator might find satisfying their desires in the world at large to be a dangerous affair – if you are a paedophile for example, and you try to satisfy your desires in the world at large, you might find yourself condemned, punished or ostracized.


If you become a member of a religious institution, however, you might be more insulated from danger, because as a rule, people, especially in the conservative world, tend to see religious figures as authoritative figures – and accept whatever they do without question.


In other words, if you belong in the conservative world, you will likely entrust your child blindly to a school run by a religious institution, because you will completely trust that they will do right by your child. If you are a child in the conservative world, you will likely not deem that anything wrong has happened to you, even if you are sexually abused in your school by a religious figure, because you might be conditioned to believe that everything that you receive from a religious figure is a positive experience, or that if you find your experience with a religious figure to be negative, it is likely you that is at fault.


Even someone who came from such a prominent family as former Philippines President Duterte would say that he did not report the incident of his sexual abuse under the hands of a priest named Father Paul Falvey at some point during the 1950s, because he “ was young then and I was afraid of what will happen.”


As to why religious institutions like missionary or tahfiz schools accept sexual predators or pedophiles into their fold in the first place – I think it might simply have to do with the fact that religious institutions are facing decline today.


There are 1.4 billion Catholics and 2 billion Muslims in the world today. These religious groups run innumerable churches, chapels, madrasahs, mosques, religious schools, missionary organizations all across the globe. However, the number of people who are willing to serve these religious institution in a dedicated manner might be declining.


Given this scenario, there are only two things that these religious institutions can do. It can shut down many of the churches, schools, chapels, ,madrasahs or missionary units it runs in the world and slowly shrink in size, or it can reduce the standard of who it accepts into its fold, just so that it can keep its organisation running or growing.


The more it chooses the latter, the more it will close one eye to the fact that the people who are entering its fold might be sexual predators, or try to manage these issues internally, just for meet the logistical and manpower demand of the institution.


As Eric Hoffer observes: Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.


Even religious institutions will inevitably fit into this cycle.


It is perhaps only in the movement phase that a religious institution will attract people who truly believe in the tenets of the institution, to the point that they will serve society selfless as a way to live up the standards of their institution.



When the selfless service of the founders gain the appreciation and admiration of the society that they selflessly served, the institution will start attracting the more world sorts, that will join the institution, not chiefly because they truly believe in the mission of the institution, but because they will see a pathway to generate wealth, gain power or rise in status and position, through a stint in the institution.


To keep the institution growing or running, so that they can continue to gain in wealth, status, power or position, these world sorts will be tempted to reduce the standard of entry into the institution to enable the institution to grow in scale and size or to prevent it from declining in scale and size.


When the standards of the organisation are reduced, that is when sexual predators will be able to slip into the institution, and find a way feed their sexual desires, without fearing persecution and danger.


It is perhaps this point that we can say that the institution is starting to degenerate into a racket, that no longer represents the movement or the noble cause that started it.