4% of U.S. Priests Since 1950 May Have Abused

In an extensive nationwide accounting of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, a committee of U.S. bishops will report today that 4,392 priests -- 4% of all clerics -- had allegedly abused as many as 10,000 minors since 1950.

The report by the bishops’ National Review Board placed some of the blame on bishops who, in trying to protect the reputation of the church, failed to root out known abusers. The inquiry also found that dioceses around the country spent $533.4 million on settlements and other abuse-related costs over five decades.

The findings mark the first time the church has made such an accounting of alleged sexual abuse within its ranks.

Bishops hope that the release of the study will mark a turning point in the scandal that began in Boston more than two years ago and quickly spread across the country, prompting demands for a full investigation.

“It sends a message that the days of secrecy and cover-up are over,” said Father Thomas J. Reese, editor of the weekly Catholic magazine America. “We can never go back to that. The church is now the most studied institution in America on sexual abuse.”

Tod Tamberg, a spokesman for the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, called the numbers “shocking and sobering.”

The report was ordered two years ago by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at the height of the scandal that has engulfed the 64-million-member U.S. Catholic Church.

The board study was prepared by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, based on reports submitted by almost all the 195 U.S. Catholic dioceses. It found that 4% of the 109,694 priests who had served the church since 1950 had been accused of molesting minors.

Of 10,667 abuse claims since 1950, 6,700 were substantiated. About 3,300 were not investigated because the accused priests had died, the report said. Nearly 1,000 claims were not substantiated.

The numbers were released to Associated Press by the Diocese of Yakima, Wash., and confirmed to The Times by the Los Angeles Archdiocese, which released its own report last week. The Los Angeles report, which went back to 1931, found that 244 priests had been accused of molesting minors. Like the national figures, about 4% of Los Angeles priests had also been accused.

The John Jay researchers said bishops helped fuel the scandal by covering up to avoid embarrassing the church, by using unqualified treatment centers for priests who had molested minors and by relying on a willingness to forgive without punishment.

David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said Thursday night in Washington that rank-and-file Catholics would be shocked that dioceses spent more than half a billion dollars on sexual abuse-related costs.

“That may startle some Catholics and justifiably so,” Clohessy said.

Barbara Blaine, president of the group, said the settlement figures -- and the number of victims -- are probably higher than reported.

She noted that the numbers of abusive priests and victims were provided by each of the bishops. The National Review Board did not conduct an independent investigation.

As with most major developments in the scandal, victims’ advocates denounced the survey as a self-serving ploy by bishops to dodge accountability.

“The bishops are trying to put focus and emphasis on the numbers of perpetrators,” Blaine said. “The real problem is not the priests, who created these heinous acts, but rather the bishops who covered it up.”

In 2002, the nation’s bishops adopted the so-called Dallas Charter to stem sexual abuse. It put in place a “zero tolerance” policy under which any priest or deacon found to have molested a child would automatically be removed from his assignment and could lose his ordination entirely. Bishops also created sexual abuse review boards, dominated by lay members in each diocese.

In addition, they launched “safe environment” programs that instructed young people as well as church employees about personal boundaries and warning signs of potential abuse.

Finally, bishops established the National Review Board and the Office of Child and Youth Protection, which is headed by a former high-ranking executive of the FBI.

The findings to be released today are also part of the church’s response.

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Associated Press contributed to this report.