Did you know that less than 1% of Catholic Priests have ever been accused of child molestation?

Question

There are more than 48,000 Catholic priests and only 300 have ever been accused, not accused not proven. Now one is too many I believe but there is at least an equal amount of abuse in all walks of life. The incident of family related sexual abuse is 14%. Check out the facts.
http://www.webmd.com/content/article/16/2950_1725.htm

Priests are men and do make mistakes. Why should anyone be judged by anothers mistakes? Should I judge all humanity by the sins of a few?

There are no statistics for unreported cases true but the same holds for family members.

. I personally think we did the wrong thing in a lot of that and in paying off the accusers to avoid stigma. I do not understand how they could be real victims and want money for it. It made us look guilty in others eyes.

Dear wwoouut what you are talking about is probably a report by the Episcopalian Church I have given the Catholic link for 2004. If you have a link then please give it.

Answer 1

You can give all the facts you want, but isn't the church the one 'walk of life' that should have a 0% abuse rate?

It almost sounds like you're defending the Catholic priests with scientific data.

Answer 2

You accuse a person when things go public - there are many who are not yet being brought in to the public. What about those who have been doing this for the past 200 years ?

Whether it is even 1 person, wrong doing is wrong - You can make a bowl of soup, but 1 piece of dirt in it, you got to throw it away - becomes useless.

Well every family has black sheep - you can't say that the Catholics or the priests are bad just because you find 300 people doing wrong - but that does not mean that it's a fact to forget. 1 % does not make it right - you get me ya?

Answer 3

Very interesting ploy. If you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem. I hate to get sidetracked with statistics here. It is a departure from reality, and dehumanizes the problem. But it is your question, and therefore use of statistics to try to belittle the problem that is in discussion. I don't judge you; I want to discuss it to try to make a better world. What is better than denial, by belittling the problem and letting it continue, is to admit it and get on with the solution.

So as this is statistical fact discussion, I read your article. Nowhere does it say anything about 300 priests. Attached find one that reports this:

“2004: A report commissioned by the Church says more than 4,000 US Roman Catholic priests had faced sexual abuse allegations”

You are off by a factor of 10. It goes on to say this involves over 10,000 children.

My immediate adjustment would be to look at the number is. Priests who have faced sexual abuse allegations. I know that if you see one cockroach, there are 40 cockroaches that you don’t see. The way the Catholic community kept these things hush, and the culture that embarrasses the victim, (Even your questions accuse, judge and put the victim on trial.) I have attached a link that statistically estimates that less than 10 percent of cases are reported. So you are off by another factor of 10 to 12, and we are up to 40,000 to 45,000 children.

Then 40 percent of victims are likely to sexually offend themselves. The number could be hire if many didn’t turn to suicide, prostitution, drug abuse, and petty crime. We will assume that is only 2.5 victims ratio as the 4,000 to 10,000 example given above. That doubles the victims in one generation. So, that is 80,000 to 90,000 abused children in one generation, WITHIN a never-ending cycle.

So, you say only a 1 % abuser problem. I say a problem with over 80,000 child victims. And the above all has to do with sexual abuse. We have not yet dealt with sexual harassment, physical and mental abuse. We have not dealt with anything but the US.

I don’t say you should quit the religion over it. I wont be able to convince you to do that. So what I think is you truly believe in god, and believe in the innocence of childhood, that you would work from within to try make yourself, and your religion more perfect, and closer to god. What are you in god’s eyes if you turn a blind eye to even one case of child abuse?

Answer 4

You have your facts COMPLETELY wrong! A 2004 study conducted by the Vatican itself indicated that more than 4,000 Catholic priests had faced such charges in the past 50 years. Now, I'm not an expert, but I think anybody who knows anything about crime statistics, especially sex crime statistics, will acknowledge that even the 4,000 number is probably WAY too low, because sex crimes are under reported.

Answer 5

I personally don't people blame the church for the molestations as much as THE CHURCH HIDING AND ENABLING THE DEVIANTS. placing people who have been accused back with children, and not reporting it to the proper authorities causing long term damaging affect to these and possibly other children who haven't been identified is so repulsive that it sicking most people.

I personally don't hold the church responsible for the actions of a few but I do hold them responsible for their own actions or lack of action. They hid and protected these people from the proper authorities and they should be punished for their crime.

I believe more people are upset about that.

Answer 6

In our small town, it happened 60 years ago, and no one said a thing. The guy is gone and we are trying to forget. The damage was grave and has affected three generations of people so far.

More recently, the same church has been blessing motorcycles with holy water.

Answer 7

Did you know that any more than 0% of Catholic PRIESTS being accused of child molestation is TO MANY.

Answer 8

and what about the measure the catholic church takes at punishing these priests? at least when a family member is caught they are prisoned...not sent to another church...so they can get "accused" again.

Answer 9

Wow, this statistic is fascinating. Imagine how many actually are abusers and were never accused!

Answer 10

To bad there is not a statistic for unreported cases.