Over the past 20 years, the number of abuse allegations against Catholic clergy has dropped, according to a new report from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA).
It also notes that over $5 billion has been paid in costs due to the abuse crisis in the U.S. Catholic Church.
In November 2004, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) commissioned CARA conduct an annual survey of all of the dioceses and eparchies whose bishops are members of the USCCB.
In a report issued on Wednesday, CARA said over the past 20 years, dioceses and religious communities have deemed a total of 16,276 allegations of abuse of minors by priests, deacons, and religious brothers as “credible.”
The report says about four in five of these allegations were deemed credible by dioceses and eparchies (13,331 or 82 percent), with the other one in five deemed credible by religious communities of men (2,945 or 18 percent).
“To be clear, these credible allegations of abusive behaviors did not occur over the 20 years of the survey, but rather over the more than 80 years asked about on the annual surveys,” the report says.
It also noted four in five abuse victims were male (80 percent) and one in five was female (20 percent). Meanwhile, more than half were ages 10 to 14 (56 percent) at the time the abuse occurred or began, with 24 percent ages 15 to 17 and 20 percent ages 9 and younger.
The report noted that more than 90 percent of the allegations occurred in 1989 or before, with 5 percent in the 1990s and just 3 percent since 2000.
“Overall, 86 percent of all alleged perpetrators were identified as ‘deceased, already removed from ministry, already laicized, or missing,’ not surprising as about seven-tenths (72 percent) of the alleged abuses occurred in 1979 or earlier, 20 to 50 years before the first CARA survey was conducted in 2004. The other 14 percent were ‘permanently removed from ministry or retired from ministry during the year’ of that particular survey,” the CARA report reads.
The report says altogether, Catholic dioceses and religious orders paid $5,025,346,893 over the 20 years of the survey.
“A combined three-fourths of these payments were for settlements paid to the victims (71 percent) and other payments to victims (4 percent). The other major category of costs paid out was attorneys’ fees (17 percent), which make up one-sixth of all of these costs. Six percent of costs were for the support for the alleged offenders and 2 percent were for all other costs,” CARA says.
“On average over the 20 years, 16 percent of the costs related to allegations were borne by the insurance companies of the dioceses, eparchies, and religious communities of men. The average percentage paid by insurance in the first decade of the surveys (22 percent) was more than twice as high as in the second decade (10 percent),” the report continues.
