4% of Catholic priesthood abused kids in their care

"It's always bad when a child is abused, but when the abuser wears a collar, it's worse. Much of the blame ... must be placed on the higher-ups."

Robert Bennett, attorney on a panel probing child abuse

More than 10,600 children said they were molested by priests since 1950 in an epidemic of child sexual abuse involving at least 4 percent of US Roman Catholic clergy, two studies reported on Friday.

The reports' release brought an apology from Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and complaints from victims that the reports had focused on the abusers but not on the bishops who failed to stop them.

One of the reports, written by researchers at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, revealed that 10,667 children were allegedly abused by 4,392 priests from 1950 to 2002. But the report said the figures depend on self-reporting by the bishops and were probably an undercount.

This study found reports of abuse peaked with the ordination class of 1970, from which one in 10 priests was eventually accused of abuse.

Most victims were male, and of those, the largest single age group was boys from 11 to 14 years old. Alleged abuse ranged from touching, with or without clothing, to oral sex and sexual intercourse.

Some US$572 million has been paid in damages to abuse victims, the report said. But it noted that this did not include US$85 million paid by the Archdiocese of Boston, where the sex-abuse scandal first grabbed headlines two years ago, and that 14 percent of dioceses were not able to provide figures.

The finding that at least 4 percent of American Roman Catholic priests were involved in child sexual abuse differs markedly from the figure of "less than 1 percent" offered in 2002 by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The second report, a 145-page examination of the causes and context of the priestly sexual abuse crisis, was crafted by a panel of prominent Catholics who found systemic problems in the way candidates for the priesthood were chosen and guided.

"It's always bad when a child is abused, but when the abuser wears a collar, it's worse," said attorney Robert Bennett, a member of the panel. "Much of the blame, unfortunately ... must be placed on the higher-ups."

The panel found two main factors contributing to priestly child sexual abuse, Bennett said at a news conference: Dioceses failed to keep those "dysfunctional and psycho-sexually immature men" out of the priesthood, and candidates for the priesthood were ill-prepared for lives of celibacy in a highly sexualized age.