No Excuse

For a few years now, it’s been impossible to deny that the rot in the Catholic Church ran deep. But can this number be right? Read:

Children accused more than 4,000 priests of sexual abuse in the years between 1950 and 2002, according to a draft survey commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The survey, to be released February 27, found that children made more than 11,000 allegations of sexual abuse by priests. The 4,450 accused priests are about 4 percent of the 110,000 priests who served during the 52 years covered by the study.

Even after discounting for such things as false accusations, fake “revealed” memories and the like, the idea that the Church harbored thousands of molesters is almost unthinkable.

Then there’s the third graf:

The report is based on a nationwide survey of church records, and was compiled by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice for the conference. The bishops’ conference commissioned the survey to get a better understanding of the scope of the crisis.

In other words, the numbers are no shock to the Church, since they come from the Church’s own records.