Clergy sexual abuse disappearing
by Bill Donohue, Mercator:
The clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church has long been over, and now it is practically non-existent. To be sure, there continues to be a tiny fraction of the clergy who are offenders, but it has long since been of the magnitude of a scandal. But don’t look to the media to tell you this. And don’t take my word for it — just consult the data.
On p. 41 of the recently released 2022 Annual Report on the Implementation of the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” it lists data on credible allegations against the clergy made between 2004 and 2022:
- 2 percent occurred or began in the 2000s
- 1 percent occurred or began in the 2010s
- Less than 1 percent occurred or began between 2020 and 2022
In short, contemporary news reports about priestly sexual abuse are almost always about alleged offences that took place decades ago (the 1970s was the worst decade). Quite frankly, as we have known, and as this report makes plain, almost all the abusers are either dead or have been thrown out of ministry.
(…)
The conclusion should be obvious to those not living in a state of denial: most of the molestation was done by homosexuals, not pedophiles. When adult males have sex with postpubescent males, that is called homosexuality. The offending priest may consider himself not to be a homosexual, but that subjective opinion does not change the truth. He may consider himself to be a woman, but that has no bearing on reality.
In the period under review, most of the 16 allegations were made by females. This indicates that the crackdown on homosexuals in the priesthood has been successful. The heyday of the scandal was between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s; this was also the period when the Church dropped its guard and allowed homosexuals to thrive in some seminaries and in the priesthood.
Credit must be given to Pope Benedict XVI, who instituted a policy that discouraged men with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” from applying to the priesthood. Fortunately, Pope Francis has continued this commonsensical policy. Together with the reforms established by the bishops in the United States, this explains why cases of molestation have crashed.
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