Approximately 4% of American Priests have been accused of sexual abuse. This action

Here's an article by a secular humanist atheist that says the myth of Catholic-priest rapists is unjust.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.p.../article/9548/

From the article:

This study covered the period of 1950 to 2002, and it did indeed find that 10,000 individuals in the US - 10,667, to be precise - had made allegations of sexual abuse against priests (against 4,392 priests in total, around four per cent of the 109,694 Catholic priests active in the US between 1950 and 2002)"

Further, only 6% of those accused were convicted. Not sure if this means cover up, but whatever happened to 'innocent until proven guilty?'

"Of the 4,392 priests in America who were accused of sexual abuse in the period of 1950 to 2002, 1,021 were investigated by the police, and of these, 384 were charged, of whom 252 were convicted"

Also, of the 10000 allegations, about 1200 accusations were of rape. The others were other sexual abuses (touching innappropriately, etc)

So 4% of priests accused, 6% of those accused convicted (.24% priests)

If anyone has information on the United States abuse statistics to compare, I would appreciate it.

Note: I'm not condoning in any way the actions of these priests, they should be persecuted to the full extent of the law (including those covering them up). However, I am questioning the constant 'Catholic rapist' meme on the internet with pure facts.

Do you think that every instance of molestation by a priest was reported to the police? What percentage of the instances of molestation do you think were reported?

Do you think an 10 year old boy living in 1952 who gets fondled by his parish priest is going to run home and immediately tell his parents? Do you think his parents would have immediately gone to the police?

So most of the kids that claimed to be molested were lying?

So if the priest doesn't penetrate the child with his penis, it's not as big of a deal? Why even point this out?

The fact that high level church leaders were involved in covering up the problem is far more damning than the number of abusing priests.

I think there was a generic statistic of '30% of sexual crimes are reported.' I don't know (and can't know) this statistic for the Catholic Church. If someone can provide general population statistics (I couldn't find any) we could determine if the Church's priests are less or more likely to sexually abuse than others.

I don't know. Do you know?

To show that 12% of priests accused are accused of raping. Many people think almost all priests accused for sexual abuse are rapists. I'm not making excuses for the priests, I'm just stating the facts.

I've yet to see any substantial indication of some high-level conspiracy of covering up abuse problems.

I worked at a theme park once. This story concerns a roller coaster. One time, after adding a train, the block system failed and an unloaded train smashed into a loaded train. They didn't hit very hard and no one died or anthing like that. What did end up happening though is something like 22 people claimed injuries and the funny part is each train only held 20. After that the theme park learned to be a lot more careful in immeadiately isolating people involved in a similar incidents.

It would not surprise me if some people claiming to have been molested by preist were not but rather looking for a payout.

You are a despicable man.

No....its just that I know men can be despicable when they see the potential of a payout. I'm not sure what world you live in if you haven't learned that lesson yet.

Sure that can happen, but that it is your first reaction when we are talking about crimes against children, that cause such pain and devastation is despicable.
If you had a family member who told you she had been raped (I happen to be within earshot for the hypothetical to work) would you be OK with me saying "she is lying; she punched herself in the face and faked the crying so she could get some money from the guy"? Or would you perhaps be a little offended at my insensitivity?
In all the time we have debated this I have not heard you show even a hint of compassion for the victims; your callousness is pretty amazing.

Most children don't tell even if they have been asked:
* Evidence that a child has been sexually abused is not always obvious, and many children do not report that they have been abused.
* Over 30% of victims never disclose the experience to ANYONE.
* Young victims may not recognize their victimization as sexual abuse.
* Almost 80% initially deny abuse or are tentative in disclosing. Of those who do disclose, approximately 75% disclose accidentally. Additionally, of those who do disclose, more than 20% eventually recant even though the abuse occurred.
* Fabricated sexual abuse reports constitute only 1% to 4% of all reported cases. Of these reports, 75% are falsely reported by adults and 25% are reported by children. Children only fabricate ½% of the time.

Also, Jerok, if you think the # of priests who have been *convicted* is relevant, then i dont really know what to say. Typically these cases were swept under the rug by settlements, and the amount of evidence required for a conviction (for *any* crime) makes it unlikely that a priest, who has monetary support from the vatican, will ever get convicted in a "he said/she said" case.

That was my reaction to Hopey's claim that molestations might be under reported. I was making a point that they might be over reported too.

Stop trying to demonize me and go back to that fantasy bubble you live in.

The "bandwagon" phenomenon you describe is a very common occurrence, usually resulting from repeated exposure through the news and entertainment media. Over-reporting of this type has been observed in such diverse areas as food poisoning and alien abduction.

The subject has come up several times, and you are always a completely uncritical apologist for the church.

Wow...so children are clamoring to get on the "I was molested by a priest" bandwagon. It's what all the cool kids are doing!

Even if the #'s match up exactly with the regular population (which is a reach, but i'll give it to you), all this is is another great example of the transforming power of Jesus Christ.

The lack of transforming power, that is.

Do you really think that the number of children who were molested but never came forward, is outweighed by the number of children who made up false claims of molestation?

Because that would be the only way that the number would end up getting "over reported".

not to mention that sexual abuse cases are historically under-reported:

Like rape, child molestation is one of the most underreported crimes: only 1-10% are ever disclosed. Source: FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin.

Can't image having to report being molested by a priest, and then having to go to court against the priest who has the billions of dollars of vatican money behind him.

Then you haven't been looking, frankly.

Not nearly as cool as alien abduction, judging by the numbers.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/a...-by-priests.do

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_512483.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...iests-cover-up

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8587082.stm

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2...who_expose.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholi..._among_bishops

For the record, I would actually be surprised if there were absolutely no cases of adults falsely claiming molestation. But I do also think it's weird how often Catholics bring that up.

I don't know whether it was under reported or over reported. I just thought there was an element of the puzzle you failed to consider.

Haha, gogogo Hopey. Overkill FTW. Jerok?

How much money did the vatican actually kick in to defend preists? Or are you just claiming someone might think the vatican would use its mighty financial strength should they make an accusation against a parish preist somewhere?

Obviously there will be a few people who come forward years later making false claims in order to try to get a payout. That goes without saying.

However, it is completely irrelevant to the claims in the OP -- unless the number of people making false claims is so large that it outweighs the number of children who are molested but don't report it.