In the last post gerr was saying the RCC could train more pedo Priests and the RCC would still be safe as your babysitting service because the odds say so.
Probably something along this line. I guess zero pedo Priests would not sit that well with the baby fukers.
Nonetheless, A Report on the Crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States has generated a fog of figures, which cannot obscure the extent of this massive failure of institutional religion. It is indeed a crisis. Though this is a step forward, it is not the solution by any means, but a half-hearted admission that there is a problem.
Here are a few of the highlights.
[*]US clerics (priests, deacons, bishops, etc.) accused of abuse from 1950-2002: 4,392.
About 4% of the 109,694 serving during those 52 years.
[*]Individuals making accusations: 10,667.
[*]Victims' ages: 5.8% under 7; 16% ages 8-10; 50.9% ages 11-14; 27.3% ages 15-17.
[*]Victims' gender: 81% male, 19% female
[*]Duration of abuse: Among victims, 38.4% said all incidents occurred within one year; 21.8% said one to two years; 28%, two to four years; 11.8% longer.
[*]Victims per priest: 55.7% with one alleged victim; 26.9% with two or three; 13.9% with four to nine; 3.5% with 10 or more (these 149 priests caused 27% of allegations).
[*]Abuse locations: 40.9% at priest's residence; 16.3% in church; 42.8% 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). (Hartford Courant, 2/27/04)
In any case, all these figures are widely suspected to be grossly underestimated. For example, the late Fr. Tom Economus, former President of the Linkup, a national survivors' advocacy group, said back in the mid-90s that he knew of "1,400 insurance claims on the books and that the Church has paid out over $1 billion in liability with an estimated $500 million pending." (Emphasis added.)
He also said that over 800 priests had been removed from ministry and that there might be as many as 5,000 with allegations against them, which is not that far off. He often claimed that by far the most calls he received from all victims of any kind of clergy abuse were those from males who suffered abuse in their youth in the Catholic Church. Certainly the numbers, which show that the highest number of victims were 12 year old boys and that 80% of the abuse was homosexual in nature, validate that anecodotal evidence, too. In fact, while the numbers of young children and girls did not vary much, the report shows an astounding six-fold increase in the abuse of boys aged 11-17 between the 1950s and 70s. And the figures for males stayed high through the 1980s.
This is getting good, he is actively promoting the pedo Priests are actually a good thing in the Church.
