UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

NCR Editorial Staff | Nov. 2, 2015

The Catholic church has been deeply wounded by the abuse of minors by clergy and its cover-up. The personal tragedy of damaged individuals, lost lives and lost faith has been well-documented in these pages. The subsequent loss of trust in the institution has been documented here, too. But documentation about the actual financial cost of this crisis has been elusive.

With the publication of research by Jack Ruhl and Diane Ruhl, we have a dollar figure that we can pin on the crisis: $3.99 billion — at least. The Ruhls call their numbers “solid” but also “a very conservative estimate.”

Since 2004, the U.S. bishops’ National Review Board and their office of Child and Youth Protection have issued annual reports that capture some of that data, but we were never convinced those told a complete story. As…