UNITED STATES
Washington Post
Some say pope’s reported claim that 2 percent of priests are pedophiles is too low
By Michelle Boorstein July 14
Another news-making Pope Francis interview, another round of unanswered questions. This time, the topic is clergy sex abuse.
In an interview published Sunday in the Italian daily La Repubblica, the pope talks with the newspaper’s founder, atheist Eugenio Scalfari, about the “leprosy” of pedophilia. The article quotes the pope as saying about 2 percent of Catholic priests are pedophiles, but it doesn’t have Francis citing a source and the figure appears to come up in a conversational way. This is the third interview between the two men since Francis took office last year.
“Many of my collaborators who fight with me (against pedophilia) reassure me with reliable statistics that say that the level of pedophilia in the Church is at about 2 percent,” Francis was quoted as saying, according to a translation by Reuters. …
In a 2004, a report released by John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which worked with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said 4 percent of priests and deacons between 1950 and 2002 were accused of sexually abusing a minor.
Bishop-accountability.org, a Web site that publishes public information about accused priests and their cases, notes that some U.S. dioceses don’t submit regular reports to bishops on such cases. The group alleges that in dioceses where greater information was made available, either by choice or because of litigation, “the percentage of accused priests is approaching 10 percent.”
Anne Barrett Doyle of bishop-accountability.org, said the figure — however it was said — is “extremely low, it’s wrong.” She noted that Francis met last week with several European victims — his first such meeting — survivors from the developing world, including Latin America, were excluded.
“I think what this reflects is this pope’s lingering containment strategy. . . . I think he’s continuing to minimize the problem.”
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