By CatholicVote | Created at 2025-01-16 20:31:27 | Updated at 2025-01-30 19:05:39
1 week ago
CV NEWS FEED // The Catholic Chuch in the United States has paid more than $5 billion between 2004 and 2023 to victims of clergy sexual abuse, according to a report from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA).
CARA took stock of clergy sexual abuse cases in the U.S. by surveying approximately 195 dioceses and eparchies and roughly 220 men’s religious communities every year between 2004 and 2023, with an overall average survey response rate of 85%. The respondents were asked to characterize abuse allegations as “credible” or “obviously false,” and in 2016, a third category was added to encompass allegations that were unable to be proven.
“Over the 20 years of the survey, dioceses, eparchies, and religious communities have reported a grand total of 16,276 credible allegations of abuse of minors by priests, deacons, and religious brothers,” CARA reported. “About four in five of these allegations were deemed credible by dioceses and eparchies (13,331 or 82%), with the other one in five deemed credible by religious communities of men (2,945 or 18%).”
The report added, “More than nine in ten of all credible allegations occurred or began in 1989 or earlier (92%), 5% occurred or began in the 1990s, and 3% occurred or began since the year 2000.”
CARA noted that once the “unable to be proven” category was added in 2016, the number of allegations characterized as credible “decreased significantly.”
“Had that category been available prior to 2016, it is likely that a higher proportion of the ‘credible’ allegations would have instead been deemed ‘unable to be proven,’” the report continued.
The report estimated that the number of alleged abusers stood at 4,490 but stressed that the late creation of the “unable to be proven category,” as well as the late inclusion of religious brothers on the survey in 2013, could make the actual total smaller or larger. The survey found that 95% of the alleged abusers were diocesan or religious priests, while 4% were brothers and 1% were deacons. Diocesan clergy represented four-fifths of the total, while religious clergy made up the remaining one-fifth.
The report stated that 86% of the alleged abusers are now “deceased, already removed from ministry, already laicized, or missing.” The remainder were “permanently removed from ministry or retired from ministry during the year” of that particular survey, CARA added.
The report found that of the approximately $5 billion paid to victims over the course of the survey’s years, 87% of the payments came from dioceses and eparchies and 13% came from men’s religious communities. The report also noted the amounts paid by dioceses and eparchies for child protection efforts, which resulted in an annual average of $36 million during the years of the survey.
