IRELAND
Irish Independent
Ian Elliot
Published 16/07/2014
Pope Francis has been quoted as saying that “two per cent” – or one in 50 – of the Catholic Church’s clergy are paedophiles involved in abuse cases.
This information has often been requested previously but has never been provided by the church.
For this reason, I was shocked to see a figure being quoted by Pope Francis and the question immediately arose in my mind as to how he calculated it?
Previous experiences for me in Ireland have taught me to be wary of opinion stated as fact.
This frequently happens when leading churchmen express their views about clerical abuse but present them as facts.
I recall the public statement made by Cardinal Pell in Australia when the government there announced the setting up of a Royal Commission to examine institutional abuse in that country. His confidence in the way allegations had been handled in the Australian church has been shown to be badly misplaced.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.