Interesting that only male religious communities were surveyed. We know similar issues can arise in coed lay movements and female religious communities, too. It seems they acknowledge the limits, but did not explain why they narrowed the scope.
Given that the religious order by whom I was taught have a $1.5 million dollar fund for victims of abuse in their orphanage and I was one of their non-orphanage victims, the omission of female orders seems to be more related to social stereotypes than reality.
Against the previous known number of cases. A massive reduction in violations is by definition a good thing. If we didn’t see a reduction our methods aren’t working. You’re never going to get perfect because we are wretched sinners.
Look, I’m on your side. But the transmission of grace through sacraments and charisms of office is mercifully not dependant on the sanctity or nastiness of the man doing them. You’re straying into a heresy that I can’t for the life of me remember the name of because I haven’t slept more than 4 hrs at a time in 5 years. If God’s grace can’t operate through as nasty a piece of work as McCarrick then we’re all screwed.
Be mad, but monism on one particular unresolved bit of nastiness is not entirely helpful. I for one am very heartened to know that less children are being abused by clerics of all kinds. That the efforts to scrutinise candidates, seminary formation and post-ordination practices and policies are making a difference. If they weren’t, then McCarrick’s unreckoning is the LEAST of our problems.
My daughter left the Church because of clerical abuse and the pathetically inept handling of it by the bishops. My two grandsons - save for my funeral liturgy - will never attend a Catholic Mass. So apologetics and relativized statistics are not a balm for me. And one offense is enough. I hope you get some quality sleep. 🙏
I find uniting my sufferings to those of Jesus on the cross for the conversion of my enemies and persecutors helpful. I also find it much harder to forgive those involved in cover ups than the abusers themselves because the abusers were probably mentally ill while the cover uppers were probably putting the ends above the means.
I've only ever figured out two solutions to the problem of evil. One is the apologetics version. The other is hugging a crucifix and thinking about the Incarnation. Neither is particularly balmy. They seem to tend more toward making suffering efficacious, than toward stopping the suffering.
What kinds of abuse are included here? Is this limited to sexual abuse? Does it include verbal abuse or physical abuse that wasn't sexual in nature? If it was all forms of abuse, what is the breakdown of percentages?
I believe that this only covers sexual abuse. Unfortunately, our Church has a long way to go in recognizing and addressing verbal, physical, psychological, and spiritual abuse.
This roughly tracks with anecdotal evidence I’ve heard from safeguarding officers in Australia. I have a family member who has been working with Catholic Schools for 30 years and in the entire time has had *one* case of clerical sexual abuse that entire time, and the incidents were reported from the 1980s.
Still plenty of sexual abuse going on tragically, but if it’s not mum’s new boyfriend, it’s a parent, other close relative or male friend, more than a few lay teachers. The most startling is the dramatic increase of cases of child-on-child cases in the last 10 years. Almost all involve exposure to pornography via smartphones or sometimes school issued tablets and laptops.
The battle is never over, but I think there is some hope that the hard work done to date is bearing fruit.
Classical pedophila is fairly rare even in the general population. The law doesn’t care if it’s a 10 yr old or a 15 yr old. Neither can give consent. The age at victimisation might matter for psychologists trying to help a victim sort through it, or studying the phenomena, but as far as the law is concerned, it’s a distinction without difference.
Another difficulty with interpreting these survey results is that the population in question is also declining over time. Both the number of children in church and the number of priests have fallen significantly over the past decades due to secularization, religious disaffiliation and the accompanying decline in vocations.
I would like to see these counts normalized by the number of priests. What’s the average number of credible allegations per priest per decade in the US? I bet that curve would show less of a decline. And if you exclude credible reports made more than 10 years after the abuse, so that recent decades can be more directly compared to past decades, I wouldn’t be surprised if the normalized curve is nearly flat.
Also, the suggestion that the decline is due to background checks is incredible. Of the hundreds of priest rapists who have come to light, how many had a criminal record before entering the priesthood? Even James Porter would have passed a background check at the time of his ordination.
Thanks for sharing your experience. It’s good that Fort Wayne-South Bend has regular, repeating background checks.
The problem is that clerical child abuse is often not reported until decades after the crime, so the priests in question would not usually have police records during the period of time they abuse children. And of course, many do not begin abusing children until after they are priests. The police reports would be blank for decades, so background checks would not raise red flags. The CARA report’s suggestion that the decline in accusations is due to background checks doesn’t make sense. How many seminarians and/or priests were removed from ministry over the past 25 years due to a failed background check? Some, perhaps, but I suspect not enough to account for the decline in accusations.
That isn’t to argue against background checks. We should be as rigorous as possible in providing a safe environment for children and background checks have their place. Background checks might be particularly important for screening lay ministers, for example. But we’re talking about accusations against clergy here, not lay ministers.
I suspect that clerical child abuse is still a problem and that the decline in the number of accusations against priests has as much to do with the decline in the number of priests as anything else. If the average incidence of abuse per priest is constant but the total number of priests is falling, then we would expect the total number of accusation to fall as well. But what we want to see is a decrease in the rate of abuse per priest, not simply a decrease in the number of priests. This report doesn't tease apart those two statistics. The Pillar should commission their crack data scientist, @brendanhodge180899, to find the answers! 😀
Still 80% male victims, and 80% in or around their teens. Legally "children", but older than people realise.
So that's adult men who are sexually attracted to teenage boys, and are willing to act on that even though they might lose their entire career.
Or - perhaps more likely - adult men who are sexually attracted to teenage boys, and are willing to act on that because they know it will be covered up or minimal used by their more senior colleagues who have similar interests and track record.
Thank you for noting that abuse of adults is not included in this study. Yours is the only piece I have come across that highlighted that distinction. Unfortunately, our experience at Awake would seem to indicate that abuse of adults is still widespread and largely unaddressed.
Interesting that only male religious communities were surveyed. We know similar issues can arise in coed lay movements and female religious communities, too. It seems they acknowledge the limits, but did not explain why they narrowed the scope.
Given that the religious order by whom I was taught have a $1.5 million dollar fund for victims of abuse in their orphanage and I was one of their non-orphanage victims, the omission of female orders seems to be more related to social stereotypes than reality.
“experts say that might be a positive sign,”
By what standard, the 7 cups in the Book of Revelation? We are talking about violation of the natural law.
Against the previous known number of cases. A massive reduction in violations is by definition a good thing. If we didn’t see a reduction our methods aren’t working. You’re never going to get perfect because we are wretched sinners.
Abhorrent and unrepentant wretched sinners like McCarrick
This guy makes McCarrick look like a choir boy.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-15/ashley-paul-griffith-appealing-life-sentence/104822464
Where exactly does it say that this guy can:
• impose hands to ordain bishops, priests, and deacons?
• use his anointed hands to consecrate bread and wine into the body and blood of our Lord Jesus?
• teach and provide an example with apostolic authority?
Please spare us church apologetics by way of examples outside the Church. It only further humiliates victims and the lay faithful.
Look, I’m on your side. But the transmission of grace through sacraments and charisms of office is mercifully not dependant on the sanctity or nastiness of the man doing them. You’re straying into a heresy that I can’t for the life of me remember the name of because I haven’t slept more than 4 hrs at a time in 5 years. If God’s grace can’t operate through as nasty a piece of work as McCarrick then we’re all screwed.
Be mad, but monism on one particular unresolved bit of nastiness is not entirely helpful. I for one am very heartened to know that less children are being abused by clerics of all kinds. That the efforts to scrutinise candidates, seminary formation and post-ordination practices and policies are making a difference. If they weren’t, then McCarrick’s unreckoning is the LEAST of our problems.
Donatism is the heresy.
THANK YOU! That one!
My daughter left the Church because of clerical abuse and the pathetically inept handling of it by the bishops. My two grandsons - save for my funeral liturgy - will never attend a Catholic Mass. So apologetics and relativized statistics are not a balm for me. And one offense is enough. I hope you get some quality sleep. 🙏
Very sad to hear that. You have demonstrated why we call it the sin of scandal.
It must be said though that Jesus Christ came and died for you. Don't let the influence of other sinners prevent you from receiving His grace.
I find uniting my sufferings to those of Jesus on the cross for the conversion of my enemies and persecutors helpful. I also find it much harder to forgive those involved in cover ups than the abusers themselves because the abusers were probably mentally ill while the cover uppers were probably putting the ends above the means.
I've only ever figured out two solutions to the problem of evil. One is the apologetics version. The other is hugging a crucifix and thinking about the Incarnation. Neither is particularly balmy. They seem to tend more toward making suffering efficacious, than toward stopping the suffering.
What kinds of abuse are included here? Is this limited to sexual abuse? Does it include verbal abuse or physical abuse that wasn't sexual in nature? If it was all forms of abuse, what is the breakdown of percentages?
I believe that this only covers sexual abuse. Unfortunately, our Church has a long way to go in recognizing and addressing verbal, physical, psychological, and spiritual abuse.
This roughly tracks with anecdotal evidence I’ve heard from safeguarding officers in Australia. I have a family member who has been working with Catholic Schools for 30 years and in the entire time has had *one* case of clerical sexual abuse that entire time, and the incidents were reported from the 1980s.
Still plenty of sexual abuse going on tragically, but if it’s not mum’s new boyfriend, it’s a parent, other close relative or male friend, more than a few lay teachers. The most startling is the dramatic increase of cases of child-on-child cases in the last 10 years. Almost all involve exposure to pornography via smartphones or sometimes school issued tablets and laptops.
The battle is never over, but I think there is some hope that the hard work done to date is bearing fruit.
This data exhibits more of a pattern of pederasty rather than pedophilia.
Classical pedophila is fairly rare even in the general population. The law doesn’t care if it’s a 10 yr old or a 15 yr old. Neither can give consent. The age at victimisation might matter for psychologists trying to help a victim sort through it, or studying the phenomena, but as far as the law is concerned, it’s a distinction without difference.
I'm not referring to a legal distinction. Both are bad. However, pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder. Pederasty is a proclivity.
Another difficulty with interpreting these survey results is that the population in question is also declining over time. Both the number of children in church and the number of priests have fallen significantly over the past decades due to secularization, religious disaffiliation and the accompanying decline in vocations.
I would like to see these counts normalized by the number of priests. What’s the average number of credible allegations per priest per decade in the US? I bet that curve would show less of a decline. And if you exclude credible reports made more than 10 years after the abuse, so that recent decades can be more directly compared to past decades, I wouldn’t be surprised if the normalized curve is nearly flat.
Also, the suggestion that the decline is due to background checks is incredible. Of the hundreds of priest rapists who have come to light, how many had a criminal record before entering the priesthood? Even James Porter would have passed a background check at the time of his ordination.
When I served as a catechist in FW-SB we had to have a police check every 5 years.
Thanks for sharing your experience. It’s good that Fort Wayne-South Bend has regular, repeating background checks.
The problem is that clerical child abuse is often not reported until decades after the crime, so the priests in question would not usually have police records during the period of time they abuse children. And of course, many do not begin abusing children until after they are priests. The police reports would be blank for decades, so background checks would not raise red flags. The CARA report’s suggestion that the decline in accusations is due to background checks doesn’t make sense. How many seminarians and/or priests were removed from ministry over the past 25 years due to a failed background check? Some, perhaps, but I suspect not enough to account for the decline in accusations.
That isn’t to argue against background checks. We should be as rigorous as possible in providing a safe environment for children and background checks have their place. Background checks might be particularly important for screening lay ministers, for example. But we’re talking about accusations against clergy here, not lay ministers.
Not Fort Worth. Fort Wayne-South Bend.
I suspect that clerical child abuse is still a problem and that the decline in the number of accusations against priests has as much to do with the decline in the number of priests as anything else. If the average incidence of abuse per priest is constant but the total number of priests is falling, then we would expect the total number of accusation to fall as well. But what we want to see is a decrease in the rate of abuse per priest, not simply a decrease in the number of priests. This report doesn't tease apart those two statistics. The Pillar should commission their crack data scientist, @brendanhodge180899, to find the answers! 😀
Still 80% male victims, and 80% in or around their teens. Legally "children", but older than people realise.
So that's adult men who are sexually attracted to teenage boys, and are willing to act on that even though they might lose their entire career.
Or - perhaps more likely - adult men who are sexually attracted to teenage boys, and are willing to act on that because they know it will be covered up or minimal used by their more senior colleagues who have similar interests and track record.
*minimalised
Thank you for noting that abuse of adults is not included in this study. Yours is the only piece I have come across that highlighted that distinction. Unfortunately, our experience at Awake would seem to indicate that abuse of adults is still widespread and largely unaddressed.