Vatican official says "keep abuse confidential"

[Soutane]

The police report revealed that Mr. Martin had changed his name. His birth name was identified as Tod Biltcliffe, a man who, a decade earlier, obtained a lucrative settlement when he accused a New Hampshire priest of molesting him in the 1980s. At the time the priest protested that Mr. Biltcliffe was committing fraud and larceny. The Church settled anyway. Biltcliffe’s claim was that when he was 15 years old, the priest fondled his genitals while the two were in a hot tub at a local YMCA. Curiously, the investigation file contained a transcript of a 1988 “Geraldo Rivera” show entitled “The Church’s Sexual Watergate.” One of the cases profiled was that of a young man who claimed that a priest fondled his genitals while the two were in a hot tub at a local YMCA.

The 1988 “Geraldo” transcript was a sensationalized account of clergy sex abuse cases from the 1970s and 1980s. The transcript is notable because it contains many of the same claims of exposing secret Church documents, archives, and episcopal cover-ups in 1988 that lawyers and reporters claim to have exposed in 2003.

Writer Jason Berry, and contingency lawyers Jeffrey Anderson and Roland Lewis all appeared live on “Geraldo” on November 14, 1988 to announce the existence of secret Church archives, cover-ups by bishops, and out-of-court settlements of Catholic clergy sex abuse claims across the country. Jason Berry, who excoriates the Church and priesthood at every opportunity, actually defended, in 1988, the existence of so-called “secret” Church archives: “Canon law says that you have to have a secret archive in every diocese….That’s funny because I’ve been attacking the Church for three years on this…I want to express my own irony of [now] being in a position of defending the Church.”

I have been in prison for eleven years. As a priest, I cringed while the latest wave of abuse claims unfolded in the press in the last few years. Inmates often feel like victims, but some saw the proliferation of abuse claims as a lucrative scam and wondered why they were letting such an opportunity pass. I have been repeatedly asked whether I would give the name of a priest who might have been present in someone’s childhood neighborhood, or if I thought the Church would quietly settle if a claim was made. When asked if the claim would be true, the answer is always the same: “Of course not!” One inmate reported that he was visited by his lawyer who asked if he is Catholic. The lawyer is alleged to have said: “If you want to accuse a priest of something, I can have $50-grand in your account by the end of the year.”

Another inmate told of his narcotics arrest by a detective who was apparently fielding cases for contingency lawyers. The young man reported that he was asked whether he wanted to accuse a priest who had been accused by others. The young man insisted there was nothing he could accuse the priest of, but the detective reportedly suggested: “That’s sort of beside the point, isn’t it? We’re talking a lot of money here.”

Yet another inmate claims that he indeed was molested by a priest and is awaiting settlement from a distant diocese. The man says little about the abuse beyond a vague and cursory suggestion that he somehow repressed it. He drones on incessantly, however, about plans for his expected windfall, about investment opportunities, and about how non-invasive the settlement process has been. Another, rather insightful inmate remarked: “Let me get this straight. If I say that some priest touched me funny 20 years ago, I’ll be paid for it, I’ll be a victim, and my life will be HIS fault instead of mine! Do you have any idea how tempting this is?”

In a 2004 article in the Boston Phoenix, “Fleecing the Shepherds,” legal expert and author Harvey Silverglate cautioned against capitulating to significant numbers of questionable claims brought after the Church entered into huge blanket settlements. In some cases, such claims were deemed “credible”—the standard established for permanent removal of accused priests—with no other basis than their having been settled.

As accusations swept over the U.S. Church, few in the media dared write anything contrary to the tidal wave gaining indiscriminate momentum against the Church. A notable exception was the left-leaning Catholic magazine Commonweal, which editorialized: “Admittedly, perspective is hard to come by in the midst of a media barrage that is reminiscent of the day care sex abuse stories, now largely disproved, of the early nineties…All analogies limp, but it is hard not to be reminded of the din of accusation and conspiracy-mongering that characterized the anti-Communist witch hunts of the early 1950s.”

With media coverage of the unprecedented millions invested in blanket settlements, the trolling for claims and litigation continues unabated. Last year, a Boston area high school history teacher and coach of twenty years, a husband and father with no prior record or accusation, was caught up in an Internet sting by a detective posing on-line as a teenage boy cruising Internet chat rooms for sexual encounters. The practice has netted the detective some 400 arrests, including—by his own estimation—1 priest, 6 police officers, and 18 public school teachers. The ex-teacher, now prison inmate, related that as the handcuffs were set upon him, before he was even led out of the YMCA to which he had been lured and arrested, the detective asked some curious questions: “Are you a Catholic?” “Yes.” “Were you ever an altar boy?” Another “yes.” “Were you ever molested by a priest?”

Father Gordon MacRae is in prison for claims alleged to have occurred in 1983, and for which he maintains innocence. His case was extensively analyzed in a two-part series in The Wall Street Journal (April 27/28,2005) by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Dorothy Rabinowitz.

 

[Soutane]

Saturday March 20, 2010
Twilight of the Scandal

by Kiera McCaffrey

(Catalyst 12/2006)

The Catholic League would never defend the indefensible. That is why we praised the media for putting the spotlight on the Church’s sex-abuse scandal in 2002. Without journalists breaking the story, the Church may have been slower to clean house and a greater number of adolescents may have been harmed. Similarly, we have never criticized those victims of abuse who file legitimate lawsuits against the church, or lay groups that truly are focused on helping the reform process. Nevertheless, recent events have forced us to reconsider our earlier assessment.

It is obvious to us that there is a growing problem of late with trial lawyers, advocacy groups, certain segments of the media and even lawmakers seeing the sex abuse scandal not as a problem that has largely been corrected, but as an unending supplier of money, ratings and attention. Moreover, individuals from these various fields are joining forces, not to protect young people—if that were the goal, calls for reform would begin with the public schools—but to bludgeon the Catholic Church.

Ideally, victims’ groups provide an atmosphere of support for those who were molested as minors and suggest ways in which the Church can ensure the safety of others. However, two elements, bitterness and lust for power, have corrupted many of these groups, which have taken up a new agenda of stripping the Church and her priests of the same rights enjoyed by the rest of America.

The bitterness comes from a projection of the acts of a few onto the entire Church. The lust for power comes not from problems within the Church, but from reforms made subsequently. When the scandal first came to light, the media looked to victims’ groups for commentary and background information. Now, at the twilight of the scandal, when abuse cases have declined, the media have less cause to seek out the spokesmen of such groups. Accustomed to the limelight, these organizations are finding it harder to stay in the public eye without becoming increasingly extremist in their endeavors. They often turn to allies for help with such work.

The ethics behind victims’ groups accepting donations from lawyers who represent group members in the wake of traumatic events are questionable. Some advocates for abuse victims realize this and act accordingly. Survivors First, a Boston-based group created in the aftermath of the scandal, has a policy that it will not “accept money from anti-gay groups, anti-Catholic groups or plaintiff lawyers.” However, as Forbes magazine’s Daniel Lyons first made clear in 2003, such scruples are not shared by other organizations.

For instance, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) touts itself as “the nation’s largest, oldest and most active support group for women and men wounded by religious authority figures…an independent and confidential organization with no connections with the church or church officials.” Notice this statement says absolutely nothing about SNAP’s connections to trial lawyers.

David Clohessy, SNAP’s national director, admitted this year that approximately 18% of the group’s $500,000 to $600,000 budget comes from lawyers’ donations. Jeffrey Anderson, notorious for his outrageously broad-sweeping suits against the Church (e.g., filing suit against the Vatican and every single U.S. bishop), is one of those hefty donors. Anderson has made tens of millions of dollars from lawsuits against the Church. And each time he takes a cut from a settlement he negotiates or trial he wins (attorneys may receive between 25% and 40% of the money awarded in each ruling), he is in a better position to write the big checks to his friends at SNAP. And SNAP, of course, is often on hand to support him in his legal efforts.

One way for attorneys and victims’ groups to open the Church to more suits is to ask judges to demand the Church turn over personnel files. Digging through these confidential documents, they may discover or claim to discover new incidents of crimes or cover-up. However, it is not only through the courts that they can ensure the Church is more vulnerable to lawsuits; changes in legislation can make it possible to file suit for abuses that allegedly happened many years ago. And a whole slew of folks are working to see that such changes in fact come about.

SNAP spends 10% of its annual budget to promote legislation the group deems in its interest. Just this October, SNAP joined the newly-formed Foundation to Abolish Sex Abuse in urging the Pennsylvania legislature to pass a bill which would give those alleging they were sexually abused before the age of consent until their fiftieth birthdays to file charges. (Current law allows individuals to file suit only until their thirtieth birthdays.) The group has petitioned for similar changes in statute of limitation laws in many other states.

Voice of the Faithful is another organization that targets clergy at frequent occasions. Formed in 2002, the group purports to seek a “Spirit-driven dialogue toward a stronger Catholic Church.” However, as is evident from an amicus brief the group filed with SNAP in a case in Maine, Voice’s idea of a stronger Catholic Church evidently means one where the Church is forced to turn over files on deceased priests who have had molestation claims made against them. Besides stripping rights away from priests, Voice has been criticized for advancing ideas that go against Church teaching. Though the group’s spokesman, John Moynihan, has stated they are “neutral” on the issues of abortion, homosexuality and the all-male priesthood—troubling enough for a supposedly Catholic flock—Voice meetings and literature have played host to speakers and articles espousing heterodox views time and again.

 

[Soutane]

Saturday March 20, 2010
Twilight of the Scandal

by Kiera McCaffrey

(Catalyst 12/2006)

The Catholic League would never defend the indefensible. That is why we praised the media for putting the spotlight on the Church’s sex-abuse scandal in 2002. Without journalists breaking the story, the Church may have been slower to clean house and a greater number of adolescents may have been harmed. Similarly, we have never criticized those victims of abuse who file legitimate lawsuits against the church, or lay groups that truly are focused on helping the reform process. Nevertheless, recent events have forced us to reconsider our earlier assessment.

It is obvious to us that there is a growing problem of late with trial lawyers, advocacy groups, certain segments of the media and even lawmakers seeing the sex abuse scandal not as a problem that has largely been corrected, but as an unending supplier of money, ratings and attention. Moreover, individuals from these various fields are joining forces, not to protect young people—if that were the goal, calls for reform would begin with the public schools—but to bludgeon the Catholic Church.

Ideally, victims’ groups provide an atmosphere of support for those who were molested as minors and suggest ways in which the Church can ensure the safety of others. However, two elements, bitterness and lust for power, have corrupted many of these groups, which have taken up a new agenda of stripping the Church and her priests of the same rights enjoyed by the rest of America.

The bitterness comes from a projection of the acts of a few onto the entire Church. The lust for power comes not from problems within the Church, but from reforms made subsequently. When the scandal first came to light, the media looked to victims’ groups for commentary and background information. Now, at the twilight of the scandal, when abuse cases have declined, the media have less cause to seek out the spokesmen of such groups. Accustomed to the limelight, these organizations are finding it harder to stay in the public eye without becoming increasingly extremist in their endeavors. They often turn to allies for help with such work.

The ethics behind victims’ groups accepting donations from lawyers who represent group members in the wake of traumatic events are questionable. Some advocates for abuse victims realize this and act accordingly. Survivors First, a Boston-based group created in the aftermath of the scandal, has a policy that it will not “accept money from anti-gay groups, anti-Catholic groups or plaintiff lawyers.” However, as Forbes magazine’s Daniel Lyons first made clear in 2003, such scruples are not shared by other organizations.

For instance, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) touts itself as “the nation’s largest, oldest and most active support group for women and men wounded by religious authority figures…an independent and confidential organization with no connections with the church or church officials.” Notice this statement says absolutely nothing about SNAP’s connections to trial lawyers.

David Clohessy, SNAP’s national director, admitted this year that approximately 18% of the group’s $500,000 to $600,000 budget comes from lawyers’ donations. Jeffrey Anderson, notorious for his outrageously broad-sweeping suits against the Church (e.g., filing suit against the Vatican and every single U.S. bishop), is one of those hefty donors. Anderson has made tens of millions of dollars from lawsuits against the Church. And each time he takes a cut from a settlement he negotiates or trial he wins (attorneys may receive between 25% and 40% of the money awarded in each ruling), he is in a better position to write the big checks to his friends at SNAP. And SNAP, of course, is often on hand to support him in his legal efforts.

 

[Soutane]

One way for attorneys and victims’ groups to open the Church to more suits is to ask judges to demand the Church turn over personnel files. Digging through these confidential documents, they may discover or claim to discover new incidents of crimes or cover-up. However, it is not only through the courts that they can ensure the Church is more vulnerable to lawsuits; changes in legislation can make it possible to file suit for abuses that allegedly happened many years ago. And a whole slew of folks are working to see that such changes in fact come about.

SNAP spends 10% of its annual budget to promote legislation the group deems in its interest. Just this October, SNAP joined the newly-formed Foundation to Abolish Sex Abuse in urging the Pennsylvania legislature to pass a bill which would give those alleging they were sexually abused before the age of consent until their fiftieth birthdays to file charges. (Current law allows individuals to file suit only until their thirtieth birthdays.) The group has petitioned for similar changes in statute of limitation laws in many other states.

Voice of the Faithful is another organization that targets clergy at frequent occasions. Formed in 2002, the group purports to seek a “Spirit-driven dialogue toward a stronger Catholic Church.” However, as is evident from an amicus brief the group filed with SNAP in a case in Maine, Voice’s idea of a stronger Catholic Church evidently means one where the Church is forced to turn over files on deceased priests who have had molestation claims made against them. Besides stripping rights away from priests, Voice has been criticized for advancing ideas that go against Church teaching. Though the group’s spokesman, John Moynihan, has stated they are “neutral” on the issues of abortion, homosexuality and the all-male priesthood—troubling enough for a supposedly Catholic flock—Voice meetings and literature have played host to speakers and articles espousing heterodox views time and again.

Another group, Healing Alliance (formerly known as Linkup), turned to Jeffrey Anderson to educate them about effective lobbying techniques. Those gathered at the 2003 annual meeting of the victims’ support group were instructed by the lawyer-turned-showman that teddy bears are the key to influencing elected officials. He told them that, should an advocate call on a legislator who is not in his office, the advocate only needs to leave one of the stuffed toys with a staffer in order to turn a missed opportunity into a successful appeal: “You tell them it represents the innocence of a child—the innocence that’s been stolen—and I guarantee they’ll remember you.”

But when it comes to changing public policy, Anderson isn’t content to give a few pointers and then leave the driving to the advocates. He and Larry Drivon, another attorney specializing in claims against the Church, helped draft a bill in California that opened a one-year window during which the statute of limitations for bringing civil suits on sex-abuses cases was abolished.

 

[Soutane]

Colorado Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald later based her own legislation, which would have opened a two-year window and would have permitted civil actions to be brought against those who are “deceased or incapacitated,” on Anderson and Drivon’s work. Helping Fitz-Gerald draft this legislation was another attorney, Marci Hamilton. Hamilton, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York, was referred to Fitz-Gerald by SNAP; she works for the group as an expert on behalf of victims and is a strident critic of the Catholic Church.

Victims’ groups have lobbied for similar legislation in other states as well. Despite the fact that witnesses die and memories fade, there is a continued push to do away with the safeguards built into our laws. It is not only statute of limitation laws that are targeted by legislators; several states have considered bills that would mandate priests to report cases of molestation learned in the confessional. Though none has become law, the fact that legislators, lawyers and advocacy groups have even advanced the idea is testament to their hostility toward the Church.

If Catholic officials even speak up about such matters, they make themselves vulnerable to a volley of criticism. The Colorado Catholic Conference learned this when it argued that the Fitz-Gerald bill should apply uniformly to all institutions, including public schools. Despite the fact that it was opposition from public schools that sunk the bill, Catholics bore the brunt of the blame. Favoring soundbite over substance, state Senator Ron Teck whined that “the phrase ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ was being ignored [by the Church] for the sake of secular society and benefit.’”

People like Teck know that such trite clichés have a certain appeal, much like Anderson’s teddy bear shtick. Not only do they sway the folks at home, but for the newsmen, they make great copy. And the media are always hungry for a story about abuse in the Church: no sooner had the scandal broke when the papers showed their own interest in getting a look at confidential clergy personnel files. Papers such as the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the Hartford Courant and the Washington Post appealed to judges to release confidential documents related to civil lawsuits against the Church.

Catholic leaders have seriously undertaken the good work of protecting minors in recent years (for which the bishops have received little credit). When the media, lawyers, lawmakers and advocacy groups are able to look past the desire to punish the Church—which is increasingly hard to do as they become more and more dependent on it for their livelihoods—they can help with that good work as they have in the past.

Instead, the reputations of these victims’ advocates are seriously tarnished. Since they are entangled with trial lawyers out to make a buck or advance positions inconsistent with Catholic teaching, groups like SNAP and Voice of the Faithful can only be viewed with suspicion. When politicians turn to money-hungry attorneys to craft the laws, it’s hard to trust that they’re really looking out for the best interests of their constituents. And when the media cares as much about filing news-making lawsuits as reporting the news, there are few places for people to learn the straight facts.

The Catholic Church has cleaned up its act. Many others need to follow suit.

 

[embertx3]

If I recall my history correctly, you are correct. In the beginning, the Churches were very small, sometimes meeting in someones home. The person who needed to confess stood up among the group and confessed before everyone. The one-on-one-in-a-closet style confession of today is a relatively recent invention.

Any sources for this? I’m curious as to what happened to the confessor, the victim, and the reaction of the group. Was the person stoned, kept confidential and continued the act, What happened to the victim? Usually, not all, abusers have been victim themselves at one time. This has been going since the fall of man. If this was back then then the headlines would read something like Smith’s official house says keep abuse confidential. I can’t prove it just that abuse goes on everywhere and not just the church, school, public places and especially the home. Just my thoughts.

 

[Soutane]

National News
Report: Protestant Church Insurers Handle 260 Sex Abuse Cases a Year
By Rose French
June 18, 2007

E-mailPost CommentPrintArticle Reprints
The three companies that insure the majority of Protestant churches in America say they typically receive upward of 260 reports each year of young people under 18 being sexually abused by clergy, church staff, volunteers or congregation members.

The figures released to The Associated Press offer a glimpse into what has long been an extremely difficult phenomenon to pin down � the frequency of sex abuse in Protestant congregations.

Religious groups and victims’ supporters have been keenly interested in the figure ever since the Roman Catholic sex abuse crisis hit five years ago. The church has revealed that there have been 13,000 credible accusations against Catholic clerics since 1950.

Protestant numbers have been harder to come by and are sketchier because the denominations are less centralized than the Catholic church; indeed, many congregations are independent, which makes reporting even more difficult.

Some of the only numbers come from three insurance companies � Church Mutual Insurance Co., GuideOne Insurance Co. and Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Co.

Together, they insure 165,495 churches and worship centers for liability against child sex abuse and other sexual misconduct, mostly Protestant congregations but a few other faiths as well. They also insure more than 5,500 religious schools, camps and other organizations.

The companies represent a large chunk of all U.S. Protestant churches. There are about 224,000 in the U.S., according to the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, although that number excludes most historically black denominations and some other groups, which account for several thousand congregations.

Church Mutual, GuideOne and Brotherhood Mutual each provided statistics on sex abuse claims to The Associated Press, although they did not produce supporting documentation or a way to determine whether the reports were credible.

The largest company, Church Mutual, reported an average of about 100 sex abuse cases a year involving minors over the past decade. GuideOne, which has about half the clients of Church Mutual, said it has received an average of 160 reports of sex abuse against minors every year for the past two decades.

Brotherhood Mutual said it has received an average of 73 reports of child sex abuse and other sexual misconduct every year for the past 15 years. However, Brotherhood does not specify which victims are younger than 18 so it is impossible to accurately add that to the total cases.

Abuse reports do not always mean the accused was guilty, and they do not necessarily result in financial awards or settlements, the companies said. The reports include accusations against clergy, church staff and volunteers.

Even with hundreds of cases a year "that’s a very small number. That probably doesn’t even constitute half,’’ said Gary Schoener, director of the Walk-In Counseling Center in Minneapolis, a consultant on hundreds of Protestant and Catholic clergy misconduct cases. "Sex abuse in any domain, including the church, is reported seldom. We know a small amount actually come forward.’’

Tom Farr, general counsel and senior vice president of claims for GuideOne, based in West Des Moines, Iowa, said most abuse cases are resolved privately in court-ordered mediation. Awards can range from millions of dollars down to paying for counseling for victims, he said.

One of the largest settlements to date in Protestant churches involved the case of former Lutheran minister Gerald Patrick Thomas Jr. in Texas, where a jury several years ago awarded the minister’s victims nearly $37 million (euro28 million). Separate earlier settlements involving Thomas cost an additional $32 million.

When insurance companies first started getting reports of abuse from churches nearly two decades ago, the cases usually involved abuse that happened many years earlier. But over the past several years, the alleged abuse is more recent, which could reflect a greater awareness about reporting abuse, insurance companies said.

Insurance officials said the number of sex abuse cases has remained steady over the past two decades, but they also said churches are working harder to prevent child sex abuse by conducting background checks, installing windows in nurseries and play areas and requiring at least two adults in a room with a child.

A victims’ advocacy group has said the Southern Baptists, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, could do more to prevent abuse by creating a list of accused clergy the public and churches could access.

"These are things people are entitled to know,’’ said Christa Brown, a member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, who says she was sexually abused as a child by a Southern Baptist minister. "The only way to prevent this crime is to break the code of silence and to have absolute transparency when allegations are raised.’’

At the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in San Antonio this week, the Rev. Wade Burleson proposed a feasibility study into developing a national database of Southern Baptist ministers who have been "credibly accused of, personally confessed to, or legally been convicted of sexual harassment or abuse.’’

 

[Soutane]

A convention committee referred Burleson’s motion to the SBC executive committee, which will report back with findings and a recommendation at next year’s meeting in Indianapolis.

Southern Baptist President Frank Page said leaders are considering several options to help churches protect children against abuse.

"We believe that the Scripture teaches that the church should be an autonomous, independent organization,’’ Page said. "We encourage churches to hold accountable at the local level those who may have misused the trust of precious children and youth.’’

Several years ago, the Baptist General Convention of Texas, which represents moderates who have increasingly distanced themselves from the conservative-led Southern Baptists, started a list of accused clergy for churches, but not the public. Under pressure from victim advocates, the Texas group just released the names of some convicted sex offenders who may have been ministers in local congregations.

Joe Trull, editor of Christian Ethics Today and retired ethics professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, helped the Texas convention create its registry and says there are now about 11 cases involving clergy abuse with minors.

But he believes these are just the "tip of the iceberg’’ because churches don’t have to report abuse cases to the registry and aren’t likely to.

"The problem we’re having is that churches just weren’t sending the names,’’ Trull said. "In the normal scenario, they just try to keep it secret. We’re going to have to be more proactive and let them know if they don’t come forward, they’re helping to perpetuate this problem.’’

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[Soutane]

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WorldUSACommentaryMoneyEnvironmentInnovationScienceThe CultureBooks.​

Sex abuse spans spectrum of churches

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.By Mark Clayton, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor / April 5, 2002

Despite headlines focusing on the priest pedophile problem in the Roman Catholic Church, most American churches being hit with child sexual-abuse allegations are Protestant, and most of the alleged abusers are not clergy or staff, but church volunteers.

These are findings from national surveys by Christian Ministry Resources (CMR), a tax and legal-advice publisher serving more than 75,000 congregations and 1,000 denominational agencies nationwide.

CMR’s annual surveys of about 1,000 churches nationwide have asked about sexual abuse since 1993. They’re a remarkable window on a problem that lurked largely in the shadows of public awareness until the Catholic scandals arose.

The surveys suggest that over the past decade, the pace of child-abuse allegations against American churches has averaged 70 a week. The surveys registered a slight downward trend in reported abuse starting in 1997, possibly a result of the introduction of preventive measures by churches.

“I think the CMR numbers are striking, yet quite reasonable,” says Anson Shupe, anIndiana University professor who’s written books about church abuse. “To me it says Protestants are less reluctant to come forward because they don’t put their clergy on as high a pedestal as Catholics do with their priests.”

At least 70 incidents a week
Dr. Shupe suggests the 70 allegations-per-week figure actually could be higher, because underreporting is common. He discovered this in 1998 while going door to door in Dallas-Ft. Worth communities where he asked 1,607 families if they’d experienced abuse from those within their church. Nearly 4 percent said they had been victims of sexual abuse by clergy. Child sexual abuse was part of that, but not broken out, he says.

James Cobble, executive director of CMR, who oversees the survey, says the data show that child sex-abuse happens broadly across all denominations and that clergy aren’t the major offenders.

“The Catholics have gotten all the attention from the media, but this problem is even greater with the Protestant churches simply because of their far larger numbers,” he says.

Of the 350,000 churches in the US, 19,500 5 percent are Roman Catholic. Catholic churches represent a slightly smaller minority of churches in the CMR surveys which aren’t scientifically random, but “representative” demographic samples of churches, Dr. Cobble explains.

Since 1993, on average about 1 percent of the surveyed churches reported abuse allegations annually. That means on average, about 3,500 allegations annually, or nearly 70 per among the predominantly Protestant group, Cobble says.

The CMR findings also reveal:

Most church child-sexual-abuse cases involve a single victim.

Law suits or out-of-court settlements were a result in 21 percent of the allegations reported in the 2000 survey.

Volunteers are more likely than clergy or paid staff to be abusers. Perhaps more startling, children at churches are accused of sexual abuse as often as are clergy and staff. In 1999, for example, 42 percent of alleged child abusers were volunteers about 25 percent were paid staff members (including clergy) and 25 percent were other children

 

[Soutane]

Still, it is the reduction of reported allegations over nine years that seems to indicate that some churches are learning how to slow abuse allegations with tough new prevention measures, say insurance company officials and church officials themselves.

The peak year for allegations was 1994, with 3 percent of churches reporting an allegation of sexual misconduct compared with just 0.1 percent in 2000. But 2001 data, indicates a swing back to the 1 percent level, still significantly less than the 1993 figures, Cobble says.

Child sexual-abuse insurance claims have slowed, too, industry sources say.

Hugh White, vice president of marketing for Brotherhood Mutual Insurance, in Ft. Wayne, Ind., suggests that the amount of abuse reported in the CMR 2001 data is reasonable though “at the higher end” of the scale.

Mr. White’s company insures 30,000 churches about 0.2 percent to 0.3 percent of which annually report an “incident” of child sexual abuse. But he says that his churches are more highly educated on child abuse prevention procedures than most, which may account for a lower rate of reported abuse than the CMR surveys.

 

[Soutane]

What all the data show is a settling that followed “a large spike” in the frequency and severity of church sexual misconduct claims from the mid-1980s, White says.

“Church insurance carriers implemented educational programs and policies that have helped decrease and then stabilize the trend,” agrees Jan Beckstrom, chief operating officer for the church insurer GuideOne Insurance in West Des Moines, Iowa.

CMR surveys also show many smaller churches have lagged in starting such programs, while larger churches with more resources and management controls have led the way. And for good reason: They have more to lose, and a larger abuse problem.

“I don’t know of a church that isn’t doing this,” says Simeon May, of the Richardson, Tex.-based National Association of Church Business Administration, which gives training for large churches with administrators.

At Grace Community Church in Tempe, Ariz., the executive pastor, Gary Maitha, says his church has adopted a tougher sort of love since 2000. That’s when criminal background checks, finger printing, detailed questionnaires, and careful policies such as never having children and adults “one-on-one” kicked into gear. It’s a necessity with 700 to 800 children showing up for Sunday School and many more for other church activities during the week, he says.

“We have fingerprinting and a criminal background check for anyone over age 18 that works with children,” says the Rev. Maitha. “If it comes back with a blemish, they’re not working with kids. That’s all there is to it.”

Debby DeBernardi, director of Grace Community’s children’s ministry, says church policies require, for instance, that adults go in pairs when supervising bathroom breaks for children and that they check to ensure no adults are in the bathrooms, before children enter.

Fingerprints for Sunday school
Men who’ve been screened and fingerprinted may work in the nursery. But only female staff members not volunteers may change diapers. Only adults wearing an identity badge that indicates they’ve been cleared may work with children and photo IDs are coming soon. Some long-time volunteers, offended by all the new policies, have bowed out of children’s activities.

 

[Soutane]

But the new procedures have already proven their worth, Ms. DeBernardi says. "We did have someone already apply who had a police file and had been accused of child molestation. Because of our new procedures, we caught it… Sometimes you have to bring people in and say, ‘Look, you’re welcome to come to the church, we love you. But you may not minister in the children’s area.’ "

That sort of toughness is swiftly becoming a prerequisite for insurance coverage, and to protect against lawsuits and false allegations, which can be nearly as demoralizing to a church organization.

The problem, Cobble says, is that churches are the perfect environment for sexual predators, because they have large numbers of children’s’ programs, a shortage of workers to lead them, and a culture of trust that is the essence of the organization.

Churches have been active since the early 1990s in addressing the problem, Cobble reports. More than 100,000 copies of a book he co-authored, “Reducing the risk of Child Sexual Abuse in Your Church” were sold.

Since January, when Roman Catholic dioceses nationwide began drawing headlines over pedophile priests, some church organizations have focused anew on revamping sexual abuse policies.

The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, for instance, is reportedly drafting a new sexual- abuse policy.

Ralph Colas, of the American Council of Christian Churches, a Bethlehem, Penn. organization representing fundamentalist denominations, reports fresh activity. “I’ve helped several churches this last week draw up some guideline policies,” he says. “I’ve encouraged churches to secure legal advice, to make sure they are meeting the legal mandatory reporting requirements.”

Fear of lawsuits sparked new rules
But the shift to “trust but verify” impelled to a degree by current headlines has been ongoing since a conference in Chicago in November 1992 when more than 100 denominational leaders met for the first time to discuss how to deal with child sex abuse. About that time, insurance companies were dropping coverage of churches without screening policies.

“What drove leaders to begin to respond to this issue was not the welfare of children,” Cobble says. “It was fear of large, costly lawsuits.”

 

[LtTony]

Catholic Catechism: scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c2a4.htm#1491
1491 The sacrament of Penance is a whole consisting in three actions of the penitent and the priest’s absolution. The penitent’s acts are repentance, confession or disclosure of sins to the priest, and the intention to make reparation and do works of reparation.
1494 The confessor proposes the performance of certain acts of “satisfaction” or “penance” to be performed by the penitent in order to repair the harm caused by sin and to re-establish habits befitting a disciple of Christ.

See above quote from CCC. Is there some reason why a priest confessing to poedaphilia in the Confessional cannot be asked as an act of “satisfaction” or “penance” to report the matter to his superior and/or to the police? This then would mean that absolution would be conditional on him performing the penance or satisfaction assigned to him in Confession by reporting to both authorities?

TS

I completely agree with you. I think it’s unspeakable that some here claim that rape victims who take plan B in the ER after their rape are not entitled to absolution because they knew what to do to protect themselves and knew that if the horrific happened to them that they would go to the ER for such services. Yet a priest who molests A CHILD should be simply absolved and go on his merry way…to the next parish, and the next child, and the next parish, and the next child…and just keep it a secret. Yep, that’s justice for you

But I encourage you consider joining the CC with an open mind and heart, instead of the close-minded, drone-like way some Catholics look to protect evil priests. You can’t let a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch. SOME people are working towards actually not protecting priests who molest children. There are those within the Church who believe what you posted is exactly what should be done. It’s just that the few sickos are making the most noise and getting the most publicity.

Good Catholics DO care what happens to these victims of wayward priests and want it to stop. And offering priests who molest children refuge behind the seal of confession are just kidding themselves. Even if they don’t break the seal of confession, it should be standard practice for the confessor-priest to order the wayward priest to turn himself in to the authorities!!! not keep his mouth shut.

I’m slowly becoming disenfranchised with the Catholic Church, and I haven’t even joined yet.

When a Priest confesses to pedophilia, the Bishop should be notified immediately, the next day, a conference should be called with the Priest and Bishop, the Priest should be met in the Bishops office by a police officer, de-frocked immediately, and led off in hand-cuffs, never to serve in ministry again. He can have his absolution after he gets out of prison.

And it should be. Requiring any less is offering refuge to a child molester. That just enourages the wayward priest to continue his evil works because he knows all he has to do is go to confession and get absolved because some sympathetic priest will "feel badly " about making him do right by the child he scarred for life.

Don’t ask why some people hate the Church, you gave a good example as to why. And then it’s left up to others to make up excuses or say, 'you’re right, you’re right, we’re working on it, have faith! it will get better…somehow".

Do people not see the damage reflected back to the Church this does?

Thank you, curly, for providing the CCC information I was aluuding to earlier in the thread.

So based on that clear directive, I don’t understand what this Bishop Girotti is talking about. If the confessing priest isn’t willing to repair the harm he has caused, there is no absolution.
Plus, there are extra-sacramental avenues the confessor can pursue to protect chilren from the abuser.

 

[Soutane]

Skip to comments.

U.S. Protestants Face Sex Abuse Scandals, Too, but There Are Differences With Catholics
TBO.com ^ | 4/4/02 | Richard N. Ostling

Posted on Thursday, April 04, 2002 2:16:26 PM by Tumbleweed_Connection

The flood of sex abuse allegations against priests this year has focused attention on the Roman Catholic Church, but Protestant denominations have also faced sex scandals involving clergy.

In fact, while data are sketchy, at least one expert believes the incidence of clergy molesting young children may be about as frequent - or infrequent - in Protestantism as it is in Catholicism.

Others have found Protestant scandals have a tendency to surface in cases where male ministers are counseling women or teen-age girls, while the allegations against priests have frequently involved underage males.

Penn State historian Philip Jenkins argued in his 1996 book, “Pedophiles and Priests,” that both secular and Catholic media exaggerate the extent of Catholic cases involving minors, while downplaying Protestant abuse.

For instance, the Rev. Robert Eckert of Grand Rapids, Mich., a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was sent to prison in 2000 for sexual involvement with a 15-year-old girl who worked as his baby sitter - but the case received relatively little attention.

Jenkins, an Episcopalian, thinks a 1992 survey from the Chicago Archdiocese is more representative of the true picture in Catholicism.

Among 2,252 priests serving over four decades, 39 priests (1.7 percent) apparently abused minors. Only one abuser could be termed a pedophile under the strict, clinical definition of the word - meaning the victim was prepubescent.

“I am prepared to be convinced the Catholics have a bigger problem” than Protestants, Jenkins said, but nobody has good data, partly because Protestant groups are too numerous. “I certainly haven’t seen anything, and I’m looking hard.”

Minneapolis psychologist Gary Schoener agreed.

“There are no real scientific data” on Protestants, he said. Since 1974, his Walk-In Counseling Center has been consulted on more than 2,000 cases of clergy sexual misconduct of all types, two-thirds of them with Protestants.

He finds that sex with adult women or teen-age girls is the most frequent Protestant problem.

In a typical Protestant case, a jury awarded $10 million in February to relatives of the late Deborah Yardley of Columbus, Ohio.

The suit charged that the Rev. Steven Colliflower, a United Methodist, had an affair with Yardley when she sought his help with alcohol and emotional problems. He left the ministry shortly after she made the allegation. She later died of liver disease.

The conservative World magazine says Protestantism faces a “severe problem” of clergy involvement with people the ministers are counseling, calling this “an egregious abuse of power.”

Schoener said that clergy having sex with prepubescent victims is “very rare” in all denominations.

A study of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), covering eight states over six years, found 17 cases filed against clergy with 31 victims, all female, with one case involving a minor.

There are also differences between Catholicism and the many Protestant faiths in the way sex abuse allegations are investigated.

The U.S. Catholic bishops adopted a set of principles in 1992 calling for rapid response to allegations, openness with parishioners, care for victims and compliance with secular laws on reporting criminal conduct. But some Catholic bishops have admitted they didn’t always follow those guidelines.

The Catholic principles also say a priest should be “promptly” suspended and referred for medical evaluation upon “sufficient evidence” of misconduct. The matter of reassignment is left open for a decision later.

In the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, at least, events occur more rapidly.

Bishop Donald McCoid of Pittsburgh, chair of the Conference of Bishops for the 5.1-million-member denomination, said when colleagues receive allegations against clergy “anything else on our agenda is dropped.” If a pastor admits the charge, he said, the bishop defrocks him within a day and refers charges involving minors to civil authorities.

Another difference: Protestant lay officers - most of them mothers and fathers - exercise pivotal powers in supervising clergy. Catholic power is held almost completely by ordained bishops or religious superiors.

Lutheran - as well as Methodist or Presbyterian clergy who claim innocence - are put on leave but can defend themselves through church trials and appeals.

During debates over homosexual behavior, those three denominations have defined clergy standards that limit sexual conduct to heterosexual marriage and require chastity for singles.

It’s difficult to assess the response to abuse accusations in Baptist and other denominations, where each local congregation handles cases.

The most important example is the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant group in the United States with 101,000 clergy, double the total of U.S. Catholic priests and brothers. In the past decade, its press service reported two charges of molesting minors, against a youth worker and a martial arts teacher.

But Dee Ann Miller of Council Bluffs, Iowa, says misconduct is more widespread.

Since writing a 1993 book about her own abuse by a missionary in Africa, she has been told of allegations against 22 Southern Baptist clergy involved with minors, including six who molested prepubescent children.

Miller charges that the denomination has ignored the problem. Sounding just like a Catholic activist, she said abuse will “only stop when laity get upset enough to hold their leaders responsible for incompetency.”

 

[Soutane]

Protestant Clergy Abuse Equals or Exceeds Catholic Clergy Abuse
Posted on June 20, 2008 by dannimoss
This article is courtesy of ethicsdaily.com. It was originally posted to the site July 6, 2007.

By Bob Allen 

The Associated Press reported recently that three insurance companies receive upward of 260 reports each year of young people under 18 being sexually abused by Protestant clergy, challenging the assumption that clergy sexual abuse is an exclusively Catholic problem that does not take place in other churches. 

That is a higher number than the annual average of 228 “credible accusations” brought against Catholic clerics in records reported by the Catholic Church in response to media scrutiny, a priest observed in a Fox News commentary questioning why the story isn’t garnering more attention. 

While the report about abuse in Protestant churches doesn’t absolve guilty Catholic priests or those who enabled them, said Father Jonathan Morris, it offers a more complete picture. “The problem of sexual abuse has no denominational boundaries,” he wrote. 

The AP obtained figures on sex-abuse claims from three companies that insure the majority of Protestant churches in America–Church Mutual Insurance Company, GuideOne Insurance and Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company. 

The largest company, Church Mutual, reported an average of about 100 sex-abuse cases a year involving minors over the last decade. GuideOne, with about half the clients of Church Mutual, said it has received an average of 160 reports of sex abuse against minors every year for the past two decades. Brotherhood Mutual said it received an average of 73 reports of child sex abuse and other sexual misconduct every year for the last 15 years but did not specify how many victims are younger than 18. 

That compares to at least 10,667 people who reported plausible claims of childhood sexual abuse by 4,392 priests or deacons between 1950 and 2002 in a study commissioned by the Catholic Church with the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York as part of its response to its clergy abuse scandal. That represents 4 percent of the approximately 110,000 diocesan and religious priests who served in the United States in those years. 

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops offers an extensive annual report monitoring sexual-abuse claims. There were 635 new allegations reported in 2006, 9 percent fewer than in 2005. A total of 14 allegations (2 percent) involved children under the age of 18 in 2006. The remaining 621 allegations were by adults alleging abuse as minors in previous years. 

Protestant numbers are harder to come by, the AP reported, because the denominations are less centralized than the Catholic Church. Many churches are independent, making reporting even harder. 

“This bad news for Protestant Churches is sad news for all of us,” Father Morris wrote. “I would prefer the problem be limited to any one church–even if that church were my own–because it would mean more kids would be safe. But as I have said repeatedly over the last few years, the problem of sexual abuse of minors is not an issue of religious affiliation because there is nothing religious about abusing children. The phenomenon of sexual abuse of minors in church settings is the story of sick human beings taking advantage of their position of moral authority to prey on the weak and vulnerable. If Catholic clergy were to be faithful to their church’s teaching, there would be no abuse in the Catholic Church. The same goes for Protestant clergy. The problem, then, is not one of corrupt doctrine, but of individuals being unfaithful to the most basic precepts of their own religious belief.”

 

[Soutane]

Insurance officials told the AP the numbers of sex-abuse cases has remained steady over the past two decades, but churches are doing more to prevent child-sexual abuse by conducting background checks, installing windows in nurseries and play areas and requiring at least two adults in a room with a child.

Still, said Patrick Moreland of Church Mutual, churches are particularly vulnerable to abusers.

“By their nature, congregations are the most trusting of organizations, so that makes them attractive targets for predators,” he said. “If you’re a predator, where do you go? You go to a congregation that will welcome you.”

---

 

[Soutane]

And I’ll include this one just to be fair:
Tillers on Evidence and Inference

Sunday, November 08, 2009
Sex Abuse: Do Catholic Priests (and Nuns) Do It More?
A recent post on a list for law professors who specialize in the law of evidence made me ponder, once more, the explosive question of the “clergy sex abuse scandal.” The reporting of this scandal broke in The Boston Globe while I was a visiting professor at Harvard in the spring semester of 2002. As the reporting on the scandal unfolded, I was struck that all of the accused clergy were members of the Roman Catholic Church. I thought to myself that Protestant clergy (for example) surely also occasionally succumb to sexual temptation and engage in wrongful sexual conduct. I sent an e-mail message to this effect to a Boston Globe reporter. The second (and last) reply I got from the reporter was that there is a consensus that child sexual abuse by Protestant clergy is not a problem. This thesis seemed – and still seems – counter-intuitive to me. (Later – much later – it occurred to me that perhaps the reporter meant that homosexual sexual abuse of minors is not a serious problem among non-Catholic clergy.)
N.B. #1: I am a resolute heterosexual. So my questioning and doubting are not motivated by a personal “sexual orientation” agenda.
N.B. #2: I am not a Roman Catholic. I have always been a Lutheran and for the time being I remain one.

I think it is very unlikely that wrongful sexual conduct by members of the clergy in Protestant churches is less common than wrongful sexual conduct by Roman Catholic clergy. I find support for this guess in (i) my beliefs about human nature and human sexual activity, (ii) anecdotal evidence, (iii) some (sparse) scholarly literature, and (iv) reports such as the following:
Daniel Burke, "Study: 3 Percent of Women Victims of Clergy Sexual Advances,"Ethicsdaily.com (September 11, 2009): More than 3 percent of adult women who attend religious services at least once a month have been victims of clergy sexual misconduct, according to researchers at Baylor University. Put another way: in a congregation of 400 people, seven adult women have been targets of sexual advances by clergy, the study says. In addition, in one of 50 cases, the religious leader was married, according to the report. Four percent of respondents said they knew of a close friend or family member who had experienced a sexual advance by a clergy member in their own congregation, the study says. Baylor researchers said their report is the largest scientific study into clergy sexual misconduct with adults in the U.S. “Because many people are familiar with some of the high-profile cases of sexual misconduct, most people assume that it is just a matter of a few charismatic leaders preying on vulnerable followers,” said Diana Garland, dean of the School of Social Work at Baylor University and lead researcher in the study. “What this research tells us, however, is that clergy sexual misconduct with adults is a widespread problem in congregations of all sizes and occurs across denominations.”
While the sexual abuse of children, particularly by Catholic priests, has received outsize attention in the media and academia, the abuse of adults has received relatively little notice, according to Baylor researchers.

“We hope these findings will prompt congregations to consider adopting policies and procedures designed to protect their members from leaders who abuse their power,” said Garland. “Many people—including the victims themselves—often label incidences of clergy sexual misconduct with adults as `affairs.’ In reality, they are an abuse of spiritual power by the religious leader.”

The research was conducted using questions included in the National Opinion Research Center’s 2008 General Social Survey of more than 3,500 American adults and followed up by interviews with respondents.

So what accounts for the focus by media outlets such as the Boston Globe on sexual abuse by Catholic clergy?
These are some possibilities:

1. One possibility is simple ignorance – ignorance that Protestant clergy (and clerics in other kinds of religious organizations) “do it too.”

But if that’s part of the explanation, I am inclined to view such ignorance as wilful. The reporters at the Boston Globe, for example, were probably quite familiar with popular literature such as Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry, in which the “hero” – a Protestant preacher – engages in sexual misconduct of at least a sort.
2. Another possibility is that media outlets such as the Boston Globe have a degree of “homophobia.”
This may explain some of the behavior of some media outlets. But it does not readily explain the behavior of the Boston Globe (which, ironically, once championed the activities of the gay “street priest” Paul Shanley [a central figure in the Boston Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal that broke 2002 A.D.] and decried the efforts of the Archdiocese of Boston to suppress Shanley’s “street ministry”).

 

[Soutane]

However, anti-homosexual attitudes very probably play a large part in explaining the depth of the public outrage about homosexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy.

1. It is also possible that anti-Catholic bias played (and still plays) a role in the behavior of media outlets such as the Boston Globe and the New York Times.
   The thesis that the Boston Globe in particular has suffered from anti-Catholic bias should not be too readily dismissed.
2. Some or much of the media focus on the Catholic clergy was probably the result of the activities of plaintiffs’ lawyers who brought lawsuits on behalf of victims of clergy sex abuse. Those lawsuits have been brought almost exclusively against Catholic clergy and branches of the Roman Catholic Church.
   I do not think it likely that a disproportionate number of those lawyers were either anti-Catholic or anti-gay (although I would not be astonished to find that I am wrong about this). My guess is that plaintiffs’ lawyers focused on Catholic targets of lawsuits for damages because Catholic clergy and the Roman Catholic church were the most alluring targets for financial reasons: the hierarchical structure of the Roman Catholic Church made it possible – after some tinkering was done with immunity rules pertaining to non-profits – to bring actions for damages against entities with relatively deep pockets. (I deeply discount the hypothesis that the beneficent intentions of plaintiffs’ lawyers explain why those lawyers so fervently pursued Catholic targets instead of Protestant targets. Plaintiffs’ lawyers – like many of the rest of us – are primarily interested in money.)
   Now that financially-rewarding Roman Catholic targets are drying up – they have almost been exhausted – we can expect to see – and I think we are seeing – an increasing number of sex abuse lawsuits against Protestant clergy and churches, Jewish clergy and organizations, other religious organizations and their clergy (e.g., Mormons, Muslims, Seventh Day Adventists), and – eventually – educators (regardless of religious persuasion) and those who employ educators (school boards, universities, and the like).

 

[Soutane]

Monday August 27, 2007
Child sex abuse by Protestant clergy difficult to document
Large number of denominations, nature of hierarchy make task elusive
BY THE NUMBERS

These reports related to complaints of child sex abuse by Protestant clergy in the United States were released by the insurance companies to The Associated Press.

• Protestant clients: 96,000
• Top churches insured: United Methodist – 10,000 churches; Southern Baptist – 9,600; Assemblies of God – 4,000; Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – 3,300
• Complaints: average of 100 each year for the past decade
• Claims paid: declined to release because company deems figure proprietary information
• Protestant clients: 45,000
• Top churches insured: Baptist – 10,922 churches;

Presbyterian --2,812; Lutheran – 2,665; United Methodist – 1,742

• Complaints: average of 160 each year for the past two decades
• Claims paid: about $4 million each year for the past five years for child sex abuse and sexual misconduct settlements, excluding attorney fees
• Protestant clients: 30,000
• Top churches insured: Southern Baptists – 4,000 churches; Assemblies of God – 2,300; United Methodist and Baptist – 2,000 each
• Complaints: average of 73 of both child sex abuse and other sexual misconduct each year for the past 15 years
• Claims paid: about $7.8 million for sexual misconduct and child sex abuse in the past 15 years.

By William Moyer
Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin

Allegations and confirmed cases of sex abuse by priests against children in the Catholic Church have been well documented since widespread reports of abuse first surfaced in the Boston area in the early 2000s.

But tracking allegations and confirmed cases of misconduct by Protestant clergy is an elusive task because Christianity’s other ecclesiastical division is wildly diverse, congregational and sometimes staunchly independent compared to Catholicism’s centralized hierarchy.

Ed Hart of the Central New York Baptist Association said all 42 churches in his jurisdiction outlined by Broome, Tioga, Delaware, Herkimer, Steuben and Oswego counties are autonomous. Local church leaders would handle complaints against pastors at the congregational level but would not be required to report anything to Hart or any other denominational officials.

In the Southern Tier’s largest Protestant denomination, all allegations are investigated by the bishop and four district superintendents, said Donald Perry, communications director for the Wyoming Conference of the United Methodist Church, headquartered in Endicott. But denominational polity does not require either the regional or national church to track allegations and confirmed cases.

Still, some statistics can be gleaned from three insurance companies that provide liability coverage for 165,500 Protestant churches in the United States:

 

[Soutane]

The largest company, Church Mutual of Merrill, Wis., with 96,000 clients including the Wyoming Conference, reported an annual average of 100 child sex abuse cases during the past decade.

• GuideOne, headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa, reported an average of 160 reports every year for the past two decades among its 45,000 clients.
• About 75 claims have been investigated by Brotherhood Mutual in Fort Wayne, Ind., each year for the past 15 years, but the company did not specify if all complaints involved minors.

Officials from all three insurance companies said the number of cases has remained steady during the past two decades. The data released to The Associated Press did not include information about whether the accused was found guilty by church or legal jurisdictions.

FEW LOCAL CASES

Hart said he knew of no credible child sex abuse allegations against Central NY Baptist clergy in the past decade. “It’s their business; it’s a totally voluntary affiliation,” said Hart, who’s headquartered in Lacona. “If it were a big issue and the church didn’t do anything about it, the association might disassociate itself from the church.”

No pastor among local clergy in the United Methodist Church is currently under investigation, said Binghamton District Superintendent the Rev. David Masland. He said he knew of no credible child sex abuse complaints against the conference’s roughly 180-200 active clergy in the past 15 years.

Among the 50 churches in the Central New York District of the Wesleyan Church, no allegations are currently under investigation, Superintendent Wayne G. Wager said.

Episcopal Church officials in Central New York have handled several allegations of alleged clergy sex abuse cases in recent years.

In late July, a retired priest was suspended for 20 years after a church investigation and four affidavits showed that Edward Putnam engaged in sexual activities with minors while rector at a church in Skaneateles from 1986 to 1993. Putnam, 66, was chaplain to the New York State Assembly in the 1990s.

In May 2006, Ralph E. Johnson voluntarily resigned without admitting guilt amid a diocesan investigation into sexual allegations involving a boy while Johnson was rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Owego in the 1970s.

Elsewhere, a salacious case that drew national attention involved Lewis Lee, pastor of the Christian Baptist Church in Sherburne, who abducted the teenage daughter of parishioners in March 2006 before being arrested in Maryland and eventually sentenced to 11 years in federal prison for crossing state lines to engage in sex with a minor, as well as a maximum of 28 years for felony rape.