THE Catholic church has introduced psychological profiling for trainee priests in an effort to weed out paedophiles.

Anyone applying to join the priesthood is to be interviewed by a psychologist to establish if they display traits similar to those found in child abusers.

The new safeguards are the church’s response to revelations of widespread child abuse by priests and officers of the Catholic church across the world, dating back decades.

The church is keen to be seen to tackle the problem following the publication last year of a secret Vatican paper, dating back to 1962, which threatened to excommunicate bishops if they did not cover up cases of sexual abuse involving priests.

The Catholic church in Scotland has now admitted that child abusers are likely to “gravitate” towards the church, seeking positions of trust and access to children.

Earlier this month a Catholic priest from Annan, in Dumfries-shire, was arrested in connection with an alleged child pornography ring.

The psychological tests are designed to expose traits such as paranoia, jealousy and obsessiveness. Respondents are shown a series of otherwise innocuous images and asked to make up a story based on them. One image is of a boy seated at a desk, looking at a violin. Another is of a muscular farmer standing in a field with various people in the background.

Psychologists claim that how such images are interpreted can reveal telling insights into a person’s character.

In addition, the interviewer will ask the same questions at different stages of the interview to see whether the answers change. Even seemingly imperceptible changes in their responses can reveal defensiveness, perhaps about incidents in their past.

“We recognise that we have to be open to the whole experience of what psychology offers us,” said Fr Willie McFadden, rector of Scotus College in Glasgow.

The move follows an influential report, published by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI) in 2002, which investigated how trainee clergy were vetted and how sex offenders within the church environment were rehabilitated.

A wide-ranging review will now take place with church leaders across Britain to establish which ones need to tighten up their screening procedures. It will include independent churches in Scotland, such as the Free Presbyterians, the Quakers and the United Reform church.

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