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U.S. Catholic Bishops Abuse Audit Released: $840 Million Paid Out since 1950

WASHINGTON, DC, February 18, 2005 (CWNews.com/LifeSiteNews.com) - The US bishops' conference on Friday released the results of its second yearly audit of sex-abuse prevention policies in American dioceses. The report said that 1,092 new claims were filed against clergy in 2004 and that more than $840 million had been paid out so far in legal settlements since 1950.

The report said most of the alleged incidents reported last year were decades old and nearly three-quarters of the accused priests or deacons were deceased, laicized, or removed from public ministry before the claims were made.

Last year's report revealed that 4,392 priests had been accused of molesting minors in 10,667 cases between 1950 and 2002. Both reports said most of the alleged victims were boys ages 10 to 14.

Kathleen McChesney, who heads the conference's Office of Child and Youth Protection, said the large figures show that the scandal is not history. "The crisis of sexual abuse of minors within the Catholic Church is not over," McChesney said. "What is over is the denial that this problem exists."

The audit of 195 US dioceses found that nearly all were complying with the charter on child protection approved by the conference in 2002. The auditors were from a private firm that sent out teams mainly of former FBI agents across the country.

Victim groups decried the report's optimistic outlook that found most of the claims reported in 2004 to be decades old. David Clohessy of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said it often takes decades for victims to come forward. "There always has been and always will be years, perhaps decades, until victims realize they've been hurt and find the strength and courage to speak out," Clohessy said. "To suggest otherwise is at best premature and at worst reckless."

Asked on what steps the bishops' conference had taken so that bishops could hold one another accountable, Bishop William Skylstad, president of the conference, said it was a "complex issue" and that only the pope can discipline bishops. On the charge that some bishops continue to keep priests accused of abuse in ministry, he said, "I can't second-guess the individual decisions of bishops."

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