Here’s a very interesting tidbit from the John Jay report. The percentage and number of incidents of abuse by priests against girls and women remained fairly steady from 1950 to today, but the number and percentage of incidents of sexual abuse by priests against males rose rapidly from the early 1960s, peaking in the late 70s, and finally dropping quickly, but not to the original 1950s level, in the 90s. Hmmm, what could account for that?
Remember, we’re not supposed to go on a witch hunt or look for scapegoats.
Update: Here is a graph from the report that illustrates what I’m saying. Note as well how the number of cases of abuse against females actually drops, not stays steady.
NOTE: the 90’s mirror the 50’s if you take into account that the first set on the graph is for a 15 year period, 1944-1959, while the last is for a 10 year period.
It would be interesting to know the diocese which were the worst offenders, I grew up in the Archdiocese of Hartford, and was an altar boy for 6 years, and never heard of anything happening..
Another interesting point: During the 90s is when we had the fewest priests, which meant they were living ALONE… You would think the cases would be would be higher then????
I heard a commentary on the radio the other day about this report. The commentator said “For liberal Catholics this is an issue about celibacy. For conservative Catholics this is an issue about homosexuality. The liberals do not think VatII reforms have gone far enough. The conservative think they have gone too far. ” I didn’t know that VatII banned celibacy and accepted homosexuality.