New report indicates era of widespread clerical abuse in US Church is over
Crux Staff • January 16, 2025
A new report into abuse allegations against Catholic clergy in the US sheds light on when the vast majority of abuses occurred, indicating that there is good reason to hope that the number of incidents of abuse are dropping drastically to the point of becoming increasingly rare.
Compiled by the Centre for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), the report released on 15 January also notes that over $5 billion has been paid in costs due to the abuse crisis in the US Catholic Church.
In November 2004, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) commissioned CARA to conduct an annual survey of all of the dioceses and eparchies whose bishops are members of the USCCB.
As a result of information compiled through those surveys, CARA reports that over the past 20 years dioceses and religious communities have logged a total of 16,276 allegations of abuse of minors by priests, deacons and religious brothers, though it highlights that the incidents of alleged abuse did not necessarily occur in that same period.
“To be clear, these credible allegations of abusive behaviours 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 explains that about four in five of these allegations were deemed credible by dioceses and eparchies (a total of 13,331 allegations, representing 82 per cent), with the other one in five deemed credible by religious communities of men (a total of 2,945 allegations, representing 18 per cent).
The report also notes that four in five abuse victims were male (80 per cent) and one in five was female (20 per cent). More than half of victims were aged 10 to 14 (56 per cent) at the time the abuse occurred or began, with 24 per cent aged 15 to 17, and 20 per cent aged 9 and younger.
The report notes that more than 90 per cent of the allegations occurred in 1989 or before, with 5 percent in the 1990s and just 3 percent since 2000.
It states: “Overall, 86 per cent of all alleged perpetrators were identified as ‘deceased, already removed from ministry, already laicised, or missing’, not surprising as about seven-tenths (72 per cent) 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 per cent were ‘permanently removed from ministry or retired from ministry during the year’ of that particular survey.”
As a result of claims against the Church, Catholic dioceses and religious orders paid $5,025,346,893 over the 20 years of the survey, according to the report.
“A combined three-fourths of these payments were for settlements paid to the victims (71 per cent) and other payments to victims (4 per cent). The other major category of costs paid out was attorneys’ fees (17 per cent), which make up one-sixth of all of these costs. Six per cent of costs were for the support for the alleged offenders and 2 per cent were for all other costs,” CARA says.
It adds: “On average over the 20 years, 16 per cent 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 per cent) was more than twice as high as in the second decade (10 per cent).”
Photo: Bishop Edward Scharfenberger speaks to members of the media during a press conference at the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo as the diocese wrestles with an ongoing sexual abuse scandal, Buffalo, New York, 4 December 2019. (Photo by AARON LYNETT/AFP via Getty Images.)