The Christian Post
April 3, 2014|9:13 am
By Leonardo Blair , CP Reporter
(Photo: Reuters/Stefano Rellandini)
A Vatican security agent stands among the priests as Pope Francis leads a mass in Saint Peter’s Square at the Vatican, May 19, 2013.
Sexual abuse scandals have cost the U.S. Catholic Church nearly $3 billion dollars over an eight year period; and according to a report released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops last month, the scourge has not gone away.
The report, titled ‘Report on the Implementation of the Charter for Protection of Children and Young People,’ said in 2013 alone sexual misconduct by clergy cost the American dioceses $108,954,109. Of that amount, just over $61 million went toward settlements while another $6.1 million went toward therapy for abuse victims. Some $28.9 million went toward attorneys’ fees, while $10.4 million went toward the support of the errant priests.
The report pegged the full cost of the sexual abuse scandals on American dioceses and religious institutes between 2004 and 2012 at $2,744,881,843: $2,351,903,157 for dioceses and eparchies. Scandals cost religious institutes $392,978,686.
Dioceses, eparchies and religious orders also spent an additional $41,721,675 on child protection initiatives in 2013, according to a review by Catholic Online.
The report said “370 new credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor” were lodged by 365 people in 2013 and 80 percent of them are male. Only nine of those allegations came from people who are minors. All the other allegations were made by adults who said they were abused as minors.
“These allegations were made by 365 individuals against 290 priests or deacons,” noted the report. Just over half of the reported cases “had already been identified in prior allegations,” while 73 percent of the allegations were made against priests who “are deceased, already removed from ministry, already laicized or missing.”
The report noted that alleged victims typically reported that the abuse occurred between the ages of 10 and 14, from 1960 to 1989.
Only 14 percent of the abuse claims could be “substantiated,” according to the report, while 50 percent of them could not be proven.
I have posted and linked to the Report on the Implementation of the Charter for Protection of Children and Young People.
The “Charter” is more commonly known as the Dallas Charter. It is is unique to the United States. No other bishops have, to my knowledge, anything akin to the Dallas Charter.
I have scanned through but not yet read this report on the implementation of the Charter in its entirety, but there are a multitude of interesting stats.
I recall reading somewhere that there have been problems in some dioceses with accuracy of reporting, and also note that on page 8 of the report that there is mention that most dioceses and all eparchies opted not to have parish audits and that, for various reasons, “the auditors are furnished incomplete or inaccurate data which affects the reliability of the information presented in this report.” In other words, the stats are far from the final word.
Anyway, you can click here to link directly to the 2013 Annual Report (It can be accesses manually by clicking on the “Document” button on the horizontal menu under the picture on Sylvia’s Site , then click “Church-related Documents” then scroll down to “United States” and then scroll to “Dallas Charter”