Study - Four percent of priests accused of abuse since 1950

WASHINGTON -- A national, church-sanctioned study documenting sex abuse by U.S. Roman Catholic clergy found that about 4 percent of clerics have been accused of molesting minors since 1950, a diocese said Thursday.

The Diocese of Yakima, Wash., said in a news release that the survey compiled by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice found 4,392 of the 109,694 clergy who served over that five-decade period faced allegations of abuse.

The survey was overseen by the National Review Board, a lay watchdog panel the bishops formed at the height of the abuse crisis. The review board had a news conference scheduled this morning in Washington to discuss the report and a companion study on how the abuse crisis developed.

Dioceses nationwide received 10,667 abuse claims since 1950, according to the news release. Of those, claims by 6,700 were substantiated. Another 3,300 were not investigated because the accused clergymen were dead.

Another 1,000 claims proved to be unsubstantiated, the diocese said.

The national report also tallied abuse-related costs at $533.4 million.

A source who has read both the John Jay tally of abuse cases and the report on causes provided some other findings to the AP on condition of anonymity.

The causes report places much of the blame on bishops, saying "moral laxity" in disciplining offenders created an atmosphere that allowed the crisis to occur.

The report acknowledges that some bishops recognized the gravity of the problem early on and spent years lobbying the Vatican to change church law so they could move faster against abusers.

The study also said the bishops were sometimes ill-served by the therapists and lawyers they sought out for guidance.

Still, there have been widespread reports of bishops who sheltered abusers and the review board used harsh language to criticize churchmen who failed to act. It said these bishops were guilty of "neglect" and insensitivity toward victims that allowed the "smoke of Satan" to enter the church, the source said.

The bishops have apologized repeatedly for any wrongdoing and have enacted several reforms to protect children since the long-simmering abuse crisis erupted more than two years ago in Boston. The discipline policy they adopted in June 2002 bars sex offenders from all public ministry.

The bishops authorized the new, landmark studies to restore trust in their leadership. No other profession or religious group has exposed itself to such scrutiny on the abuse issue, even though molestation is an acknowledged problem among coaches, teachers and clergy of other faiths.

The prelates said they wanted to undertake the investigation to demonstrate their willingness to confront abuse in the church.

Victims, however, say the bishops acted only under intense public pressure and said any study by the church is bound to underestimate the number of abuse cases.

In Boston, where the national crisis erupted with the case of a rogue priest two years ago, officials said Thursday that 162 archdiocesan priests -- about 7 percent of those who served over the last half-century -- had been accused of abuse.

But plaintiffs' attorney Mitchell Garabedian scoffed at the count.

"We have an entity here that has allowed the wholesale sexual abuse of children by clergy, and to allow them to count the numbers just doesn't make any sense," he said. "There is a huge credibility problem here."