10,600 report abuse by US priests

Published on Saturday 28 February 2004 00:00

MORE than 10,600 children have said they were molested by priests since 1950 in an epidemic of child sexual abuse in the US Roman Catholic Church, two studies reported yesterday.

The studies, which were commissioned by US Catholic bishops in 2002, said more than 4 per cent of priests were involved.

The abuse peaked with the ordination class of 1970, from which one in ten priests was eventually accused of abuse.

Robert Bennett of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops National Review Board described the scandals involving the Catholic church as a crisis of trust and faith.

"It’s always bad when a child gets abused but when the abuser wears a collar, it’s worse," he said.

The report revealed that 10,667 children were allegedly victimised by 4,392 priests from 1950 to 2002, but said the figures depend on self-reporting by US bishops and were probably an undercount.

More than 80 per cent of the alleged victims were male and over half said they were between ages 11 and 14 when they were assaulted.

Victims’ advocates immediately decried the figures as low. "Thousands of victims haven’t reported and dozens of bishops aren’t telling all they know," said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "They have no incentive to."

A second report examined the causes of the molestation crisis and put much of the blame on US bishops for not cracking down on errant priests.

"This is a failing not simply on the part of the priests who sexually abused minors but also on the part of those bishops and other church leaders who did not act effectively to preclude that abuse in the first instance or respond appropriately when it occurred," the review board said in a summary of its findings.

"These leadership failings have been shameful to the Church."

The findings are sure to fuel debate among Catholics on two controversial issues: whether the Church should try to screen out gay priests and whether celibacy for clergy should be optional.

The board said celibacy was not a cause of the scandal, but that the celibacy requirement might have attracted candidates for the priesthood who were seeking an escape from sexual problems.

The board came to no direct conclusions about whether gays should be ordained.

However, it noted that "any evaluation of the causes and context of the current crisis must be cognisant of the fact that more than 80 percent of the abuse at issue was of a homosexual nature".