usmc4669
02-27-04, 11:21 AM
By RACHEL ZOLL
WASHINGTON (AP) - A panel of prominent Roman Catholics rebuked U.S. bishops Friday for failing to stop widespread clerical sex abuse over the last half-century, calling the leaders' performance "shameful to the church." The top American bishop pledged that the church's mistakes will never be repeated.
"The terrible history recorded here today is history," said Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The exchange came as the National Review Board, a lay watchdog panel formed by the bishops, issued two highly anticipated studies documenting the molestation problem from 1950 to 2002.
One report is the first church-sanctioned tally of abuse cases: It found there have been 10,667 abuse claims over those 52 years. More than 80 percent of the alleged victims were male and over half said they were between ages 11 and 14 when they were assaulted.
About 4 percent of all American clerics who served during the years studied - 4,392 of the 109,694 priests and others under vows to the church - were accused of abuse.
Victims' advocates immediately decried the figures as low. "Thousands of victims haven't reported and dozens of bishops aren't telling all they know," said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "They have no incentive to."
The second review-board report examines the causes of the molestation crisis and puts much of the blame on American bishops for not cracking down on errant priests.
"This is a failing not simply on the part of the priests who sexually abused minors but also on the part of those bishops and other church leaders who did not act effectively to preclude that abuse in the first instance or respond appropriately when it occurred," the review board said in a summary of its findings.
"These leadership failings have been shameful to the church."
WASHINGTON (AP) - A panel of prominent Roman Catholics rebuked U.S. bishops Friday for failing to stop widespread clerical sex abuse over the last half-century, calling the leaders' performance "shameful to the church." The top American bishop pledged that the church's mistakes will never be repeated.
"The terrible history recorded here today is history," said Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The exchange came as the National Review Board, a lay watchdog panel formed by the bishops, issued two highly anticipated studies documenting the molestation problem from 1950 to 2002.
One report is the first church-sanctioned tally of abuse cases: It found there have been 10,667 abuse claims over those 52 years. More than 80 percent of the alleged victims were male and over half said they were between ages 11 and 14 when they were assaulted.
About 4 percent of all American clerics who served during the years studied - 4,392 of the 109,694 priests and others under vows to the church - were accused of abuse.
Victims' advocates immediately decried the figures as low. "Thousands of victims haven't reported and dozens of bishops aren't telling all they know," said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "They have no incentive to."
The second review-board report examines the causes of the molestation crisis and puts much of the blame on American bishops for not cracking down on errant priests.
"This is a failing not simply on the part of the priests who sexually abused minors but also on the part of those bishops and other church leaders who did not act effectively to preclude that abuse in the first instance or respond appropriately when it occurred," the review board said in a summary of its findings.
"These leadership failings have been shameful to the church."