I want to offer another perspective on the escalating scandal within the Catholic Church, and to alert readers to a good recent essay on these sordid topics.[1] In "The Pattern of Priestly Sex Abuse," Harriet Fraad offers some important data many of us didn't know.
Figures from the John Jay School of Criminal Justice, for example, estimate that since 1950, about 280,000 children have been sexually abused by Catholic clergy and deacons. With the shame and denial that accompany sexual abuse, the real number must be much higher.
Worse, this is not just a recent phenomenon. Father Thomas Doyle, a priest, and Richard Sipes and Patrick Wall, former monks, have written that the Catholic Church has recognized the problem of abuse by priests for 2,000 years. Their book, "Sex, Priests and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church's 2000 Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse" (Volt Press, 2006) was based on the church's own documents.
And far from being the case of a few bad apples, Brooks Egerton and Reese Dunklin have reported that even eight years ago, two-thirds of sitting US bishops have been accused of moving pedophile priests to new assignments.[2] It is not the apples that are bad; it's the barrel.
