Born in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, Sipe was an American Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor trained specifically[2] to treat Roman Catholic priests. He practiced psychotherapy, "taught on the faculties of Major Catholic Seminaries and colleges, lectured in medical schools, and served as a consultant and expert witness in both civil and criminal cases involving the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests". During his training and therapies, he conducted a 25-year ethnographic study published in 1990 about the sexual behavior of celibates, in which he found more than half had sexual relationships. In 1970, after receiving a dispensation from his vows as a priest, Sipe married a former nun, Marianne; they had a son.[3]
Sipe was a witness in more than 57 lawsuits, testifying on behalf of victims of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests.
Sipe's research and his book Sex, Priests and Power are depicted in Tom McCarthy's 2015 film Spotlight as crucial in the Boston Globe'sPulitzer Prize–winning 2002 investigation of predatory priests and the decades-long cover-up of their crimes by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. The 1995 book is shown onscreen in its bright-red-covered hardback edition when the investigative team meet the first victim, Phil Saviano, the founder of the New England chapter of SNAP.[7] As a favor to McCarthy, actor Richard Jenkins performed uncredited as Sipe's voice in three phone calls, each based on real conversations with Spotlight reporters.[8][9]
In a May 2009 study, Sipe found that there were extensive problems in the sexual behavior of Burlington, Vermont, Catholic clergy. He examined the records of 102 priests "whose records were available" between 1950 and 2002. He claimed that, of this group, 23 priests were sexually involved with children under age 13, 15 were reported for involvement with married women and 19 were said to have had sexual relationships with adult men. He asserted that 49 could be said to have a homosexual orientation.[10]
A number of small-scale studies by Sipe and others have not found evidence that homosexuals are more likely to break the vow of celibacy than heterosexuals.[11][12]
