The assertion, which the Economist is by no means first to make, that Catholic priests are more likely to be abusers because the practice of celibacy attracts pedophiles in the first place is based on a false premise. At its root is the conviction that there must be something suspect about the practice of celibacy in the first place.

In our society, which has saturated itself with sexuality as identity and with sexual practice as self-actualization, the idea that an entire class of people can offer a witness to a different means and end to human fulfillment is treated as necessarily sinister.

So far as this relates to the Catholic Church, it is neither inexplicable nor especially surprising. Although the church maintains clerical celibacy in the West as a matter of discipline, not doctrine, the value of celibacy as a prophetic witness has always been held up as a countersign to the world, one that knowingly courts a reaction.

But the greater problem with the notion that celibacy is linked to child abuse isn’t the misrepresentation of the Catholic Church. It’s the endangerment to children. It ignores the reality that abusers are often sexually active with adults, including spouses, even while they target, groom, and abuse minors, and it clouds the conversation about how to protect young people.