USCCB report indicates widespread abuse/coverup

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March 2004

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USCCB report indicates widespread abuse/coverup
The bad news hinted out in a leaked report to CNN was confirmed on February 27 when two long-awaited reports were released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, detailing decades of child sexual abuse by priests and coverups by diocesan bishops.

The reports indicated that the abuse and assaults, mostly of boys and young men, was pervasive and that church leaders bore much of the blame for allowing it to continue for so long. In some ways the report suggests that the crisis was even more shocking than previously imagined. One appalling standout in the studies' findings, for example, is that at the crisis' peak 10 percent of all priests ordained in the year 1970 faced credible charges of abuse.

The two new reports represent an unprecedented look at the abuse crisis, partly because they were done with the cooperation of church leaders. A panel of Catholic lay people charged by the prelates with investigating the abuse crisis, the National Review Board, issued both a survey tallying molestation claims and costs from 1950 to 2002 and a companion study explaining how the problem happened.

The survey found 10,667 abuse claims over the decades. About 4 percent of all American clerics who served during the time studied—4,392 of the 109,694 priests and others under vows to the church—were accused of abuse. The percentage of abusers in society at large is unknown because studies are inconclusive.

According to the report, more than 80 percent of the alleged victims were male and over half said they were between ages 11 and 14 when they were assaulted.

The tally also calculated abuse-related costs such as litigation and counseling at $572 million, noting that the figure does not cover at least $85 million in settlements over the past year. The survey was conducted for the review board by John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

"There is absolutely no excuse for what occurred in the Catholic Church,'' said Robert Bennett, a Washington attorney and review board member. "This is not a media crisis or a personnel crisis. It's the age-old question of right and wrong, good and evil." Bennett asked how so many child predators could have stayed in active ministry for so long even after allegations had been made known.

Sue Archibald, president of the victim advocacy group The Linkup, said the reports were a positive step. But she called the studies "an incomplete body count in a battle for an ugly truth.'' Archibald warned that the report focused too narrowly on healing the church instead of helping victims.

"The focus of the report's findings remains conveniently narrow: The sexual abuse of young males by 'homosexual' priests," Archibald said in a statement. "Female child victims saw their pain minimized when this study labeled them more as an aberration in this issue. Adult victims were leveled when they painted with the inaccurate term of 'affairs.' . . . Sexual abuse is the result of an abuse of power and the choice to offend. These violations are unrelated to the victim's age, gender, or the offender's sexual orientation.

"Today's most important question should be, 'What happens tomorrow?'" Archibald said. "It is easy to roll out a list of shortcomings related to this damage assessment of clergy sexual abuse: Can we trust the bishops to self-report? What about abuse by nuns? Are all the religious order priests accounted for? Were cases referred to the police? Why isn't abuse of adults included? Why aren't the names of the accused being made public?"

Other victims' groups also criticized the report. They argue that the appalling numbers it does include are bound to represent an undercount of the problem since so many victims have yet to come forward to report abuse—and may never—and that much of the hard data has resulted from self-reporting from the bishops.

Researchers agreed. They said dioceses examining individual cases of offenders estimated there may be 3,000 additional victims who have not filed claims.

And while some church leaders pointed to the apparent decline in reports of abuse during the 1990s as a hopeful sign, abuse survivors reminded that most people victimized as children often endure decades before finding the strength to confront their abusers and report their abuse, so that a report lag on the abuse that took place in the recent past—or that is taking place now—is to be expected.

The Archdiocese of Boston, where the abuse crisis exploded two years ago, released its own findings in conjunction with the John Jay report. It found that seven percent of the priests serving since 1950 in the Archdiocese have been accused of molesting children—a higher percentage of abusive priests than the church in the United States as a whole.

The Boston report found that 162 of the 2,324 ordained priests who served in the archdiocese from 1950 to December 2003 were accused of sexually abusing 815 children. An additional 150 complaints of abuse were lodged against three deacons, 10 priests from other dioceses serving in Boston and 44 priests from religious orders, the report said.

"It's painful to see that the numbers are high and know that the problem was not addressed the way we needed it to be," Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley said in an interview. "And we are painfully aware of the suffering this has caused to the victims and to our local church and the people and clergy."

"The terrible history recorded here today is history,'' said Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He called the findings an "urgent summons" to reach out to victims. "We have nothing to fear from the truth or from the past if we learn from it,'' he said.

Though Bennett said homosexuality and celibacy in the priesthood were not the causes of the crisis, they must be considered in analyzing the crisis. Too many disordered individuals were allowed into seminaries, he charged, where they were not properly screened or prepared sexually or socially for the challenge of a celibate life.

Key figures from the report:

U.S. clerics accused of abuse from 1950-2002: 4,392. That's about 4 percent of the 109,694 serving during those 52 years.

Individuals making accusations: 10,667.

Victims' ages: 5.8 percent under 7; 16 percent ages 8-10; 50.9 percent ages 11-14; 27.3 percent ages 15-17.

Victims' gender: 81 percent male, 19 percent female.

Duration of abuse: Among victims, 38.4 percent said all incidents occurred within one year; 21.8 percent said one to two years; 28 percent, two to four years; 11.8 percent longer

Victims per priest: 55.7 percent with one victim; 26.9 percent with two or three; 13.9 percent with four to nine; 3.5 percent with 10 or more (these 149 priests caused 27 percent of allegations).

Abuse locations: 40.9 percent at priest's residence; 16.3 percent in church; 42.8 percent elsewhere.

Known cost to dioceses and religious orders: $572,507,094 (does not include the $85 million Boston settlement and other expenses after research was concluded).

Only 2 percent of abusers were sent to prison for what they had done.

For more information:
National Review Board Audit/reports/press conference on clergy sexual abuse

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