The USCCB does an annual audit of all allegations of abuse within the Catholic Church in the U.S. It is published in April for the previous year, so I don’t think 2012 is available yet.
Here is the last report:
usccb.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/upload/2011-annual-report.pdf
The report notes that:
Three percent of allegations made during the 2011 audit period were by current minors.Of the twenty-one allegations made by minors, seven were considered credible by law enforcement; three were determined to be false, five were determined to be boundary violations, and three are still under investigation.
In 2010, only 8 allegations were considered credible by law enforcement.
I’d say the reforms by Pope Benedict are working. The small number of cases are themselves still too many, but show definite improvement in how the Church handles problems, its youth protection programs, and seminary admissions and faith formation policies.
During the 2011 audit period, 683 adults who were victims/survivors of abuse in the past came forward to report an allegation for the first time. Allegations were made against 551 priests and seven deacons. of the accused clerics, 253 are deceased, 58 had already been laicized, 184 have been removed from ministry, and 281 had been named in previous audits.
So even for the older cases, 45% of all priests who were accused for 2011 were already deceased, 75% of all priests who were accused for 2011 are either deceased, already removed from ministry, already laicized, or missing; and over 90% of all abuse accusations last year allege incidents from at least two decades ago (the most common time period was from almost 40 years ago: 1975-1979).
Again, this is not to excuse the horrible crimes that did occur, but Pope Benedict made the hard decisions. He correctly recognized the institutional problems and pushed for changes back in the 1980s, as even the NY Times had to acknowledge:
nytimes.com/2010/12/02/world/europe/02pope.html?_r=0
Why do Catholics get singled out? Many people hate an organization that says the individual and the government is not the source of moral authority, God is, and that in fact, God established our Church. As many people wish to usurp the role of God, that is a threat to them, and they will do anything they can to tear down the Church because of the failings of its human members. Other institutions get a pass.
The incredible rate of abuse and institutional cover-up in other religions, in schools, in medical care facilities, in juvenile correctional facilities, in the media and the entertainment industry (see the BBC scandal, Michael Jackson, Roman Polanski, and many others) and politics continues and dwarfs the past and certainly the current rate of abuse in the Church.
Any institution with young people in it will attract predators, as the evil are attracted to and prey on the innocence of the young. The Boy Scouts of America (BSA), to its credit, has undertaken similar policies to that of the Church and the rate of abuse has fallen dramatically - so, of course it will be necessary to change all that to suit the demands of the few. Pope Benedict ordered in 2005 that the Church “cannot admit in seminaries nor give access to the sacred Orders to those who practice homosexuality, who present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture.” In conjunction with this and other policies, abuse rates plummeted. The BSA has barred homosexuals from leadership positions, but are now being pressured to reverse this policy. Those of us who lived through the scandal in the Church shudder when they consider what the results of a changed BSA policy on this issue will bring. Those who cannot learn from the mistakes of the past will be condemned to repeat them.
Just today in my hometown newspaper, there was an investigative report on the sexual abuse of juveniles and resulting coverup in state juvenile treatment centers for abuse and addiction in Arizona:
azcentral.com/news/articles/20121120teen-facility-risk-overlooked.html?nclick_check=1
