Newsgroup: it.cultura.religioni.cristiani
Titolo: [NEWS] 4 percento dei preti, secondo il NYT..

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: February 27, 2004
WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 
 Two long-awaited studies have found that the Roman Catholic Church
suffered an epidemic of child sexual abuse that involved at least 4
percent of priests over 52 years and peaked with the ordination class
of 1970, in which one of every 10 priests was eventually accused of
abuse.
 
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The human toll amounted to 10,667 children allegedly victimized by
4,392 priests from 1950 to 2002, but the studies caution that even
these numbers represent an undercount. The totals depend on
self-reporting by American bishops, the studies note, and many
victims have never come forward out of fear or shame.
The studies were commissioned by the American Catholic bishops in
2002 in response to accusations of a massive episcopal cover-up of
sexual abuse by priests. They will undoubtedly provide fodder for
controversies between left and right in the church about issues like
homosexuality in the priesthood and whether the celibacy requirement
for priests should be revoked.
These reports provide the most comprehensive examination ever of
child sexual abusers in any institution, their authors said, so it is
not possible yet to determine whether Catholic priests are more prone
to molest children than any other professionals who work with
youngsters.
"We wouldn't go near that because we just don't know," said William
Burleigh, chairman of the board of the E. W. Scripps Company and a
member of the group that prepared the report on the causes of the
crisis.
One report is a data-driven study conducted by a group of academics
at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in New York City. They
sent surveys to dioceses and religious orders asking for details
about the accused priests, their victims and the church's response,
and compiled their data from the responses.
They said that 97 percent of the dioceses filled out the surveys.
Among other things, the John Jay survey found that the church spent
more than $572 million on lawyers' fees, settlements and therapy for
victims and treatment for the priests. But the report said the figure
was prematurely low.
Researchers said in an interview that a more accurate total was about
three-quarters of a billion dollars, because the $572 million did not
include several recent settlements, like the $85 million paid to
victims by the Archdiocese of Boston and because 14 percent of
dioceses and religious orders provided none of the financial
information requested by the researchers.
The other report, on the causes and context of the crisis, was
written by a team of prominent Catholic lawyers, judges,
businesspeople and other professionals whom the bishops had appointed
to a national review board.
They reached their conclusions after interviewing 85 bishops and
cardinals, Vatican officials, experts and a handful of victims, and
after seeing the data from the John Jay researchers. Those
interviewed were promised that their comments would not be
attributed, which resulted in great candor, the report said.
Their report, 145 pages and covered in purple to signify atonement,
dissects the culture in Catholic seminaries and chanceries that they
say tolerated moral laxity and a gay subculture. They make
recommendations for reform, but no judgments on whether church
doctrine or rules need to be changed.
"The problem facing the church was not caused by church doctrine, and
the solution does not lie in questioning doctrine," the review
board's report said.
The reports were prepared for release at a news conference in
Washington, D.C., on Friday morning. The New York Times had obtained
an embargoed copy, but the embargo was broken when the Diocese of
Yakima, Wash., disclosed the results in a press release on Thursday
night, and it was also picked up by The Associated Press wire.
Even the authors of the two reports do not agree on the meaning of
the findings. The review board's report mentions that more than 80
percent of the abuse at issue was of a homosexual nature. The report
theorizes that the problem reflects a cohort of gay priests, based on
their figures that the percentage of male victims rose from 64
percent in the 1950's, to 76 percent in the 1960's and 86 percent in
the 1980's. (follows:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/27/national/27BISH.html?th

ancora sul NYT, stessa firma:
Il Ruini USA: e' acqua passata che non si ripetera' piu':
 Just after the release on Friday of two long-awaited studies on the
sexual abuse of children by more than 4,000 priests, the president of
the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops declared with
emphatic finality in a news conference that the bishops had faced the
problem, come clean and swept the church of abusers.
"I assure you that known offenders are not in ministry," the leader,
Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of Belleville, Ill., said as he punched out
his words. "The terrible history recorded here today is history."
One report said that "there must be consequences" for the leaders who
failed to stop the abuses and that the bishops should hold one
another accountable in the future. That did not satisfy critics, who
said the church was continuing to sidestep the most sensitive and
intractable issues that the scandal had raised.
In reacting to the reports, advocacy groups and reporters peppered
the bishops with a host of questions like, Should not bad bishops be
removed? Should the celibacy requirement for priests be abandoned?
Should seminaries bar gay men?
And why have most bishops not released the names of offending
priests, many of whom are living unsupervised and anonymously in the
civilian world as a result of the church's new "zero tolerance"
policy?
"What Catholics want to know is has there been a pedophile priest in
my parish or in my school?" said Peter Isely, a psychotherapist in
Milwaukee who is a board member of the Survivors Network of Those
Abused by Priests. "The most useful information the bishops have
they're not giving us.
The reports, some of whose contents were disclosed late Thursday, a
day before the official release, include a "just the facts" analysis
based on figures from bishops and religious orders and prepared by
the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. It tallies 4,392 reportedly
abusive priests and the ways and sites in which they violated more
than 10,667 children. One common scenario was plying a child with
alcohol and molesting him in the parish residence.
More than 63 percent of the victims were abused more than once, and
for some the assaults continued for years. Nearly 30 percent of the
children were reportedly abused by the same priests for two to four
years; 10 percent were abused over at least five and as many as nine
years.
The more provocative report lays out the causes of the crisis. It was
written by the members of a National Review Board of Catholic
laypeople appointed by the bishops, who judged the group to have
enough eminence and enough loyalty to the church to be entrusted with
the task.
The chairman of that group was Robert S. Bennett, a former federal
prosecutor. It included two judges, a law school dean, a
psychologist, a psychiatrist and Leon E. Panetta, former chief of
staff to President Bill Clinton.
The board's report said that there "must be consequences" for those
bishops, leaders of religious orders and seminary administrators who
behaved negligently and criminally by failing to remove priests with
histories of abuse from contact with children.
Lay groups and victims asked on Friday who will discipline church
leaders, and how and when.
One bishop has lost his position for mishandling abusers. Cardinal
Bernard Law was removed as archbishop of Boston, although he remains
a cardinal and can vote for the next pope.
Sister Christine Schenk, executive director of FutureChurch, a reform
group in Cleveland, said, "We need a system of checks and balances in
the church."
The report suggested better "fraternal correction," meaning that
bishops should keep one another accountable.
Jason Berry, a journalist who helped uncover the scandal nearly 20
years ago and who has written a new book on it, said: "Fraternal
correction is a myth. It's never worked."
In a rebuttal to Bishop Gregory's contention that every single abuser
had been removed from ministry, the survivors' network said nine
bishops had let reported abusers remain in active ministry, with some
in parishes. 
On another point in the board report, church insiders and experts
told the board members that there were far more priests sexually
active with adult women and men than priests who abused youngsters.
On Friday, several church reform groups issued press releases that
questioned the celibacy requirement for priests.
The report also says more than 80 percent of the victims were teenage
boys. Because of that, bishops were repeatedly asked at their news
conference whether gay candidates should be barred from seminaries.
Bishop Gregory said the question was under consideration by the
bishops' conference and the Vatican. He suggested that he would not
favor an outright ban.
"We as bishops should not simply be examining those who may have a
homosexual orientation," Bishop Gregory said. "Our screening should
look at all unhealthy psychological behavior. I don't want anyone in
the seminary who is selfish. I don't want anyone in the seminary who
has a distorted view of himself, the narcissistic personality, all of
the other qualities."
The report of the review board says the "paramount question" is
whether a candidate for the priesthood is capable of celibacy and
chastity, not sexual orientation.
"But given the nature of the problem of clergy sexual abuse of
minors," the report says, "the realities of the culture today and the
male-oriented atmosphere of the seminary, a more searching inquiry is
necessary for a homosexually oriented man by those who decide whether
he is suitable for the seminary and for ministry."
In an interview, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of Milwaukee said he
agreed that gay candidates should be scrutinized more carefully than
heterosexual candidates. "I would think there would be added
temptations to the fruitful living of one's chastity," Archbishop
Dolan said.
Perhaps the most immediate question that the church faces is what to
do about the offenders it has removed from ministry. The bishops said
on Friday that since their "zero tolerance" policy went into effect,
the church has removed more than 700 priests since January 2002.
"Unfortunately," Bishop Gregory added, "some who have left, we have
no way of knowing where they are. They've left the active ministry
and are out in the world."
The church says it has neither the resources nor the personnel to
monitor the thousands of inactive and former priests who victimized
children. Many victims and lay advocates, as well as some prosecutors
and experts on sex abuse, called on bishops and the leaders of
religious orders to publicize abusers' names so that they cannot move
to jobs as teachers or camp counselors.
"We need a C.D.C. for these kinds of offenses," said Dr. Paul McHugh,
the psychiatrist who was on the review board and is a distinguished
professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. "If there had
been, this epidemic that broke out would have become known."
Steven Penrod, a distinguished professor of psychology at John Jay
College of Criminal Justice, said the John Jay study, which he worked
on, suggests that the bishops were unaware of the enormous number of
abuse cases in the church nationwide because they did not share
information with one another.
"A central clearinghouse will undoubtedly come out of this,"
Professor Penrod said.
In interviews, bishops said although they were considering such a
move, they had found reasons not to, including that priests named
publicly might sue the church and that a victim might object out of
fear of being exposed.
Archbishop Harry J. Flynn of St. Paul and Minneapolis, chairman of
the bishops' ad hoc committee on sexual abuse, said: "I want to be
sure that we're on safe ground legally. Whatever we do, we do it for
the protection of children."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/national/28BISH.html?th