Here is a comparative review on the issue of Abuse: Comparative rates of clerical abuse
1. The US 2004 report *The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the US*, from the John Jay Center for Criminal Justice, New York City, commissioned by the US Bishops in 2002, showed that 4% of priests who served during the 52-year period surveyed, were culprits – 4,392 of some 110,000 priests.
2. The 27 culprits identified in the Ferns Report were in a diocese where the Mean value gives 136 priests which equals 1 culprit for every 5 diocesan posts. An amazingly high rate. Priest numbers declined from 142 in 1970 to 129 in 2004. Given turnover, it seems likely that the number who actually served during the period might be about twice the number of posts, and so give a diocesan clergy rate of 10% against the comparable US 4% overall.
I do not recall any priests in Ferns who were culprits other than diocesan clergy, and the religious priests were few in Ferns – 15 in 1970 and 8 in 2004. Even if you included the small number of religious priests in Ferns, it could reduce the rate to 9%, which is still outrageously above the US level.
3. The range in US was from 2.5 to 7% of those who had served, with 95% of dioceses being affected.
4. The Dublin report mentioned 102 culprits – they examined a sample of 46 cases in forensic detail to determine had cases been properly handled. Adjusting for turnover, the number who served might be twice the number of posts. The Dublin [ diocesan ] posts decreased from 604 in 1970 to 499 in 2004, but religious priests within the diocese greatly outnumbered them at all times, declining from 866 in 1970 to 844 in 2004. If you track abuse against the combined figure for all priests, and use the Mean values – for diocesan numbers of 552 and for religious of 855, that gives 1,407 posts, and an abuse rate [ 102 from 1,407 posts ] of 1 culprit for every 14 posts, or perhaps a rate of 3.6% of all those who had served – comparable to the 4% US result.
5 . The data for crimes per culprit are much worse in these 2 Irish dioceses. The 4,392 priest-culprits in US accounted for some 11,000 cases, or about 2.5 each, but Ferns was about 4 each [over 100 among 27 culprits]. If over 400 Dublin cases are averaged against 102 culprits, the rate is again about 4 each.
The Irish rate of crimes per culprit is thus some 50% worse than the US level. This means that the damage for which Irish bishops are morally responsible is even greater than that of their delinquent US counterparts.
6. I know of no reliable comparative date for different occupations or countries.
7. The standard to be demanded from all clergy is not just some average level of moral delinquency – particuarly in such a matter.
8. The readiness of both bishops and the Vatican to enforce strict conformity when it came to public comments regarding either church policy, such as on Clerical Celibacy, or to controverted rulings, such as Humanae Vitae, contrasts very sharply, and most unfavourably, with the systematic and persistent lenience shown to the abusers and rapists of defenceless children. And the 4 Archbishops in Dublin whose record has now been established to have been totally outrageous, were all able and willing to ensure total clerical conformity when it came to the words, but not the deeds, of their clergy. The clear and firm Gospel injunction – *Why do you call Me *Lord, Lord*, and do not do what I tell you?* [ Luke 6:46 ] seems to have been silently abrogated by both Pope and bishops – eventhough Pius V in 1568, in his *Horrendum*, could command that priests who abused minors were to be stripped of their priesthood, and also handed over to the secular authorities. Millstones seem to have been conveniently forgotten somewhere in the post-Tridentine journey.
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