According to new research from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), the number of abuse allegations against Catholic clergy has dropped over the last 20 years. The Child abuse crisis in the Catholic church has rocked the American Catholic community. Over $5 billion has been paid in costs due to the abuse crisis in the U.S. Catholic Church.
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. They started reporting data in 2004. CARA found that over the last 20 years, dioceses and religious communities have deemed a total of 16,276 allegations of abuse of minors by priests, deacons, and religious brothers as “credible.”
The data showed roughly four in five of these allegations were deemed credible by dioceses and eparchies (13,331 or 82 percent). The other one in five were deemed credible by religious communities of men (2,945 or 18 percent). The report said, “To be clear, these credible allegations of abusive behaviors did not occur over the 20 years of the survey, but rather over the more than 80 years asked about on the annual surveys.”
According to their data, four in five abuse victims were male (80 percent) and one in five was female (20 percent). Most were between ages 10 to 14 (56 percent) at the time the abuse occurred or began, with 24 percent ages 15 to 17 and 20 percent ages 9 and younger. CARA found that more than 90 percent of the allegations occurred in 1989 or before.
5 percent of the allegations came from the 90s and just 3% from the time since 2000. The report reads: “Overall, 86 percent of all alleged perpetrators were identified as ‘deceased, already removed from ministry, already laicized, or missing.’” They say this is a natural consequence of the age of the allegations. The report continues to delve into the data.
“[This is] not surprising as about seven-tenths (72 percent) 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 percent were ‘permanently removed from ministry or retired from ministry during the year’ of that particular survey,” says the CARA report. They also quantified the extent of the financial payouts to victims. Catholic dioceses and religious orders paid
$5,025,346,893 over the 20 years of the survey according to The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
They found that “A combined three-fourths of these payments were for settlements paid to the victims (71 percent) and other payments to victims (4 percent). ” They said that “The other major category of costs paid out was attorneys’ fees (17 percent), which make up one-sixth of all of these costs. Six percent of costs were for the support for the alleged offenders and 2 percent were for all other costs.”
The report concluded “On average over the 20 years, 16 percent 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 percent) was more than twice as high as in the second decade (10 percent).”