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…