Boston #'s don't add up:

The Archdiocese of Boston just announced the number of priests accused of child molestation since the 1950's, putting the total at 162.  However, the RCAB's own annual reports indicate that the total number of clergy accused between the early 1990's and 1998 was 188.  Since the Annual Reports covered a much shorter time period, and since the Delegate's Report for 1997-1998 specified the total as 188 before hundreds of victims came forward after the scandal broke in 2002, 162 seems impossibly low.  In fact, even if religious order priests and deacons are added to the total, the RCAB is still clearly understating the number of clerics accused.

 Read the RCAB Delegate Reports:

1994-1995   1996-1997    1997-1998    1999-2000     Summary, 2001

** Read highlights from the reports **

Another piece of information that sheds doubt on 162 as the total number of accused priests comes from a deposition by Sister Catherine Mulkerrin. who was appointed by Cardinal Law in 1992 to deal with cases of clergy sexual abuse.  In just over two years on the job, Mulkerrin heard complaints about more than 100 priests.  Here's a summary of her testimony from the Boston Globe (1/9/03):


Mulkerrin's pretrial testimony, given last month, will not be released until later this year. But Rodney P. Ford, the parent of an alleged Shanley victim, attended her deposition, and described it in a telephone interview from his home yesterday. He said Mulkerrin testified that in two years as McCormack's top aide, from 1992 to 1994, she heard sexual abuse complaints against more than 100 priests - most of whom were living at the time. 

 

How Archbishop Sean O'Malley massaged the numbers:  According to O'Malley,

Of those 162 priests who have had an allegation made against them, the largest group, 59 priests, were ordained in the period from 1960 through 1969. Of those priests ordained from 1980 through 2003, a period of over 23 years, a total of 8 priests have had an allegation made against them.

8 sounds pretty low, right?  Well, how many priests were ordained between 1980 and 2003?  And exactly what proportion of priests who were ordained during the 1970's had allegations made against them? 

If it seems that the sex abuse crisis somehow started to solve itself during the last few decades, the reality is that the problem -- the proportion of sexual abusers in the priesthood --got worse as seminary enrollment plummeted and clergy left the Church in droves.  According to Jason Berry:

In the last four decades, the number of priests in the United States has dropped from 60,000 to 40,000 (with 7,000 retired), even as the Catholic population has grown to an all-time high of 63 million. Over the last three decades, an average of 1,200 men have left the priesthood annually, most of them to marry. The aging clerical culture has failed to foster a successor generation. Since Vatican II, seminary enrollment has dropped 75 percent.

Within this context, it's clear that the seemingly low numbers of accused priests in recent years are due (1) to the overall decline in the priesthood and (2) to the fact that most victims from the 1980's and 1990's are not ready to speak out.  That the Church would adopt this disingenuous angle is yet more evidence of the bishops' overwhelming need to slant the truth.

Note to the general public: Don't let a bishop count the men who might molest your kids.