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Church Sex Abuse
Aired February 16, 2004 - 15:05 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. CNN has viewed a survey commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops carried out by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. It purports to substantiate thousands of claims of abuse against minors committed by priests. Skeptics say the numbers are probably low.
We get more on the story from CNN's Jason Carroll in New York.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What they're trying to do is trying to put some hard numbers behind the scope of the problem dating back to 1950. Here is some of what they found.
In the draft report that we had an opportunity to take a look at, 11,000 allegations of abuse between 1950 and 2002. Of the cases that the Church was able to substantiate, 78 percent of the victims were 11 to 17 years old. Sixteen percent were eight to 10 years old. Nearly six percent were seven or younger.
Turning now to the priests themselves, 4,450 priests accused of engaging in the sexual abuse of a minor between, again, 1950 and 2002. Twenty-five percent had two or three allegations. Thirteen percent four to nine allegations. Three percent 10 or more allegations involving minors.
Of that three percent, that equals about 147 priests. They were accused of abusing nearly 3,000 minors. And that's significant, because what you basically have is a small number or a small percentage of priests who were accused of molesting a significant number of minors. Victims rights groups say that they expected these numbers to be high, but they expected them to be even higher than what was found in this draft report.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were anticipating the numbers being somewhat higher. This is higher than what we expected. But it's -- its still not -- not what we think is out there.
CARROLL: And the reason why they think there may be more out there is because most of the research that was done, researchers had to rely on church records, as opposed to outside sources. Researchers, though, still tried to find the reason why, why this was able to go on for so many years.
They came up with several reasons, according to the research. One being a failure to grasp the gravity of the problem, an over emphasis on the avoidance of scandal, the use of unqualified treatment centers for priests accused of abuse, and misguided willingness to forgive, and insufficient accountability.
One of the big question marks in all of this is going to be, what is going to be the fallout? I think there are going to be some of those who are associated with the Church who say, look, between 1950 and 2002, you had 110,000 priests and active ministry. Of that 4,450 that were accused, that only represents about four percent. Then you're going to have others who are going to say just one priest is one too many.
Back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 16, 2004 - 15:05 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. CNN has viewed a survey commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops carried out by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. It purports to substantiate thousands of claims of abuse against minors committed by priests. Skeptics say the numbers are probably low.
We get more on the story from CNN's Jason Carroll in New York.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What they're trying to do is trying to put some hard numbers behind the scope of the problem dating back to 1950. Here is some of what they found.
In the draft report that we had an opportunity to take a look at, 11,000 allegations of abuse between 1950 and 2002. Of the cases that the Church was able to substantiate, 78 percent of the victims were 11 to 17 years old. Sixteen percent were eight to 10 years old. Nearly six percent were seven or younger.
Turning now to the priests themselves, 4,450 priests accused of engaging in the sexual abuse of a minor between, again, 1950 and 2002. Twenty-five percent had two or three allegations. Thirteen percent four to nine allegations. Three percent 10 or more allegations involving minors.
Of that three percent, that equals about 147 priests. They were accused of abusing nearly 3,000 minors. And that's significant, because what you basically have is a small number or a small percentage of priests who were accused of molesting a significant number of minors. Victims rights groups say that they expected these numbers to be high, but they expected them to be even higher than what was found in this draft report.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were anticipating the numbers being somewhat higher. This is higher than what we expected. But it's -- its still not -- not what we think is out there.
CARROLL: And the reason why they think there may be more out there is because most of the research that was done, researchers had to rely on church records, as opposed to outside sources. Researchers, though, still tried to find the reason why, why this was able to go on for so many years.
They came up with several reasons, according to the research. One being a failure to grasp the gravity of the problem, an over emphasis on the avoidance of scandal, the use of unqualified treatment centers for priests accused of abuse, and misguided willingness to forgive, and insufficient accountability.
One of the big question marks in all of this is going to be, what is going to be the fallout? I think there are going to be some of those who are associated with the Church who say, look, between 1950 and 2002, you had 110,000 priests and active ministry. Of that 4,450 that were accused, that only represents about four percent. Then you're going to have others who are going to say just one priest is one too many.
Back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
