The US Roman Catholic Church has removed 218 priests from their positions this year because of allegations of child sexual abuse, although at least 34 known offenders remain in church jobs, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.
Citing a survey it conducted of Catholic dioceses across the United States, the Post reported that at least 850 US priests have been accused of sexual misconduct with minors since the early 1960s.
The numbers — considerably higher than previously disclosed, according to the daily — reflect the breadth of the continuing scandal rocking the Catholic Church in the United States.
The figures also underscore a lack of reliable statistics on the church’s sex abuse problem, with Catholic officials interviewed saying that because it is a decentralised institution of autonomous dioceses, the church has no way of compiling those figures, the Post wrote.
The report comes as some 300 active US bishops head for Dallas this week to debate and vote on a mandatory policy toward priests accused of sexual misconduct.
The newspaper conducted its survey by contacting each of the 178 mainstream Roman Catholic dioceses across the United States.
Ninety-six dioceses responded and 82 did not.
Of those that did respond, few provided information on financial settlements, the Post wrote.
David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), an 11-year-old support group that says it has 4 000 members, speculated to the paper that the lack of information may reflect a deliberate strategy to shield the church from liability.
”It’s ludicrous that you can’t get very, very basic data such as the number of priests who’ve been defrocked or the number of criminal or civil abuse cases filed against priests,” Clohessy said.
”The church is smart enough not to have collected data, which could be discoverable” by plaintiffs’ lawyers in lawsuits, he said.
Last Tuesday, leaders of the US Catholic Church suggested that Pope John Paul II be asked to defrock any priest who commits any future sexual abuse of a minor, as well as any priest who has abused more than one child in the past.
US dioceses should be required to report accusations of child sex abuse to civil authorities, and priests or other Church personnel accused of abuse should be removed from their posts while ”credible allegations” are investigated, the bishops said in a draft proposal ahead of the Dallas meeting. – Sapa-AFP