How many priests and bishops are paedophiles in the world?

Answer 1

Another answer from our community:

The only fair way to compare is to use percentages. If you have a group of 1000 people and 100 are pedophiles, and you have a second group with only 100 people and 50 are pedophiles, it would SEEM that the first group has fewer pedophiles, when in actuality, the first group has less - 10% compared to 50%.

So, comparing percentages to the general population, there are slightly FEWER pedophiles in the group known as "Catholic priests" than there are in the general public. I'm sorry- I don't have comparisons of other denominations or religions, or occupations.

It doesn't seem possible, does it, that there are roughly the same amount pedophile priests than there are in society-at-large. One would think, with the persecution the Church has faced over this issue, that the vast majority of priests are pedophiles, but this is simply not true. They are VERY MUCH the MINORITY.

Answer 2

Another answer from our community:

Abuse has probably been around as long as man has been involved with the Church. Man is man and prone to temptations and weaknesses. However, let's not single out Catholic priests as the problem goes a lot deeper than that.

The percentage of priests that abuse is possibly less or about the same from the percentage of other men who abuse, including from other religions. If you do not believe me, feel free to read the article linked below that originally appeared in NewsWeek, a very liberal publication.

The mainstream media has all but ignored the recent Associated Press report that the 3 major insurance companies for Protestant Churches in America say they typically receive 260 reports each year of minors being sexually abused by Protestant clergy, staff, or other church-related relationships.

260 Protestant Incidents VS 9 in the Catholic Church! See the second link below from the New York Times for more information.

And the Jewish faith has its own problem with sexual abuse that is also ignored in the media.

Answer 3

The best estimates for clerical sex abuse are in the neighborhood or under 4% which is comparable to other religious denominations and much lower than the general population for male sex abuse of minors. 4% is still abominable, a single incidence of sex abuse, especially of a minor, is too much, especially when speaking about religious men who are vowed to God. In 1965 there were 68,352 priests in the world, today there are 38,964 world-wide, so we are talking about a little over 2,000 priests have been accused.

Answer 4

Another answer from a Catholic member of our community:

The vast majority of priests are not paedophiles, although there has been a tiny percentage of them. There are three reasons why it seems like an overwhelming number:

1) The Catholic priesthood very existence is dependent upon following God in a more perfect way, and this is a horrible, disgusting crime under any circumstances. All the more horrible and disgusting to find it in a member of the Catholic clergy. Due to this, the Holy Father has, as well as Pope John Paul II of happy memory, has gone out of his way to make sure that a) anyone inclined towards this is never allowed into the Church to begin with, b) anyone already in is removed promptly, and c) all candidates for the priesthood are scrupulously investigated to make sure no one else gets in with this predilection.

2) The secular courts are having a field day, due to the way the Church is organized (a bishop of a diocese is responsible for all the priests under his jurisdiction) AND the avowed purpose of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ.

3) The secular press likewise is having a field day for the simple reason that they despise the Catholic Church and everything it stands for, so anything to throw mud at the Church is front page headlines.

The following answer is taken from Yahoo answers:

It is called a fallacy of "hasty generalization" made possible thanks to our anti-Catholic media bias.

The truth is that there are a greater number of pedophiles in every other religious denomination, but the media doesn't care about exposing those criminals.

Not that I'm saying what the church did is right, it wasn't. But most of it was done out of ignorance. They were viewing this problem as a "sin" rather than a terrible evil. Since the church is in the business of forgiveness, that's how they approached it.

They also slackened on their screening requirements for seminary because of the shortage of priests experienced in the 70s.

These were indeed, a terrible, horrible mistake, but one made by every other denomination and every other profession that has contact with children.

FYI pedophila has NOTHING to do with homosexuality, or celibacy. The men who entered the priesthood AS pedophiles, did so to gain access to children, not to be servants of God. They were wolves in priest's vestments. Like all of these predators, (coaches, teachers, ministers, rabbis, etc) they seek out opportunities to have access to children.

Answer

In his book, The Changing Face of the Catholic Priesthood, Donald Cozzens (2000) claims that the Catholic priesthood has become a gay profession. Reverend Cozzens cites studies from 1989 which estimate that 48.5 per cent of Catholic priests and 55.1 per cent of seminarians are gay.

However, not all homosexuals are paedophiles, and so it is with the priesthood. Only a very small proportion of priests would molest children, regardless of whether the priest is heterosexual or homosexual.

Answer 5

Roman Catholic AnswerThe vast majority of Catholic priests are sincere, holy men, trying to do God's will, and are innocent of such scandalous crimes. Another AnswerThe vast majority of Catholic priests are sincere, decent men, and their good name and reputation is tarnished by the actions of a no doubt small minority and by those who turn a blind eye to child abuse. Nevertheless, we will never know the extent of paedophilia in the Catholic Church until the Church itself ceases to protect priests who have abused children and ceases to claim there is no problem.

Answer 6

We will never know the extent of paedophilia in the Catholic Church until the Church itself ceases to protect priests and lay teachers who have abused children. Because the Church is in a position to transfer priests from parish to parish, or even country to country, it is sometimes difficult to obtain a conviction. Sometimes the Church prefers not to know about criminal activity and sometimes it appears to believe that internal sanctions and a promise not to reoffend are the only solutions required. So, although the proportion of priests who have actually been convicted of a crime against young children may only be similar to the proportion convicted in the total population, there could be a hidden bulk of ordained and lay paedophiles who will never be punished. It is in the interests of the Church to prove that this is not the case and, perhaps in some countries, there may be tentative steps towards honest disclosure. However, this is still not the case universally.

If information about suspected paedophilia is not passed on promptly to the police or other relevant secular authorities, then the perpetrator is being protected by the Church, regardless of any employment sanctions imposed. An Australian priest, identified as 'Father F', admitted to three senior Catholic clergy that he had repeatedly sexually abused boys as young as ten years old. One of the priests to whom this confession was made, Father Wayne Peters, wrote a report to the responsible bishop, Bishop Kevin Manning. The matter was never reported to the police. When grounds for suspicion existed earlier, the priest was transferred to another diocese, and this meeting only took place because he continued to offend in his new parish.

Cardinal Pell, in spite of recent Church history of child abuse and cover-up, has insisted that the priest did not make the admissions to the three senior clergy, saying that a file note of the meeting proved this to be the case. The file note has not been disclosed, but the letter written to bishop Manning contains admissions of criminal abuse and is now in the public domain. One of the priests who attended the meeting, Father Brian Lucas, also says that he has not seen any record of the meeting, other than the letter which documents the criminal activity. He has justified the matter not being reported to the police because the evidence was not compelling enough to prosecute the offender, in spite of that decision properly lying with the police and the Prosecutor. It seems that each of four or five members of the Church hierarchy who could have reported the matter to the police has had his own good reasons for not doing so.

To this date, Father F has not been convicted or suffered any penalty other than being banned from celebrating mass in 1992 and finally being defrocked in 2005. On the available evidence, Father F ought to contribute to the statistics on convictions, but does not. If prosecutions and convictions are frequently avoided, not only are statistics on members of the Catholic church who have been convicted as paedophiles difficult to obtain, they do not provide meaningful information on the extent of the problem in the Catholic Church.

Answer 7

Undoubtedly most Catholic priests are not paedophiles, and undoubtedly the majority of Catholic priests are honourable men and among the most upstanding members of society. There are priests who are quite the opposite, but at the moment we have no way of knowing how many.

We will never know the extent of paedophilia in the Catholic Church until the Church itself ceases to protect priests and lay teachers who have abused children. Because the Church is in a position to transfer priests from parish to parish, or even country to country, it is sometimes difficult to obtain a criminal conviction. Sometimes the Church prefers not to know about criminal activity and sometimes it appears to believe that internal sanctions and a promise not to reoffend are the only solutions required. Although paedophilia by priests has increasingly become public knowledge, this very culture makes it hard to know whether there is a much greater, hidden bulk of ordained and lay paedophiles who will never be punished. It is in the interests of the Church to prove that this is not the case and, perhaps in some countries, there may be tentative steps towards honest disclosure. However, this is still not the case universally.

If information about suspected paedophilia is not passed on promptly to the police or other relevant secular authorities, then the perpetrator is being protected by the Church, regardless of any employment sanctions imposed. An Australian priest, identified as 'Father F', admitted to three senior Catholic clergy that he had repeatedly sexually abused boys as young as ten years old. One of the priests to whom this confession was made, Father Wayne Peters, wrote a report to the responsible bishop, Bishop Kevin Manning. The matter was never reported to the police. When grounds for suspicion existed earlier, the priest was transferred to another diocese, and this meeting only took place because he continued to offend in his new parish.

Cardinal Pell, in spite of recent Church history of child abuse and cover-up, has insisted that the priest did not make the admissions to the three senior clergy, saying that a file note of the meeting proved this to be the case. The file note has not been disclosed, but the letter written to Bishop Manning contains admissions of criminal abuse and is now in the public domain. One of the priests who attended the meeting, Father Brian Lucas, also says that he has not seen any record of the meeting, other than the letter which documents the criminal activity. He has justified the matter not being reported to the police because the evidence was not compelling enough to prosecute the offender, in spite of that decision properly lying with the police and the Prosecutor. It seems that each of four or five members of the Church hierarchy who could have reported the matter to the police has had his own good reasons for not doing so.

To this date, Father F has not been convicted or suffered any criminal penalty, but was banned from celebrating mass in 1992 and finally defrocked in 2005. Since Father F is no longer a priest, the Catholic Church could perhaps disclaim him in any statistics on the proportion of paedophile priests, even though it is because of the Church's inaction that he remains a respected member of his community while his neighbours remain unaware that they have a paedophile in their midst.

Whether the priesthood attracts paedophiles into its ranks, or mandatory sexual abstinence provides the underlying reason for paedophilic tendencies to surface, it does seem from the evidence that has come forward in public inquiries, that there has been an inordinate number of paedophilic Catholic priests.

Answer 8

We will never know the extent of paedophilia in the Catholic Church until the Church itself ceases to protect priests who have abused children and ceases to claim there is no problem. It is reasonable to assume that most priests are decent men who would abhor the very thought of paedophilia. However, the good name of the majority is tarnished by the actions of the minority. What we do not know is how few these miscreants are. We do know the statistics on priests who are convicted in the courts, and these figures are probably similar to the proportion of paedophiles in the male population as a whole. However, abusive members of the general public are far more likely to come to trial in the first place, as they do not have the resources of the Church to protect them. What we really need to know is how many paedophile priests have not come to trial in the courts.

In my view, the real problem in the Catholic Church is not the existence of paedophiles in the ranks of its priests, but the culture of cover-up and evasion. Not only are suspected paedophile priests protected, but the Church and many of its members refuse to admit there is a problem. Time after time you see exampls of dissembling, blame-shifting and diversion. It matters not whether other Churches have a similar problem; all that matters is whether the Catholic Church is willing to fix its own problem. I had hoped that the Church was indeed intent on attacking the vice of paedophilia in its midst, but recent news stories show that senior members of the Church, whether out of misplaced loyalty or an unwillingness to publicly admit to a wrong, continue to shield perpetrators.

While ever the Church hierarchy shields priests who sexually abuse minors, we can never know how many Catholic priests are paedophiles. While ever the culture exists of shielding perpetrators who sexually abuse minors, the Church will never solve the problem. And new cases will continue to come forward ad infinatum. And the Church will continue to claim there really is no problem and cast aspersions elsewhere. Unfortunately you can not tell if a priest is a paedophile by looking at him or even by getting to know and trust him. You can only have confidence that a priest is not a paedophile when you have confidence that the Church has no tolerance for paedophiles in its midst, passing information on to police and other civil authorities as soon as the first suspicions of wrongdoing arise. This is still not universally the case.

Answer 9

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson (Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church) has first hand knowledge of the problem, having been appointed in 1994 by the Australian bishops to a position of leadership in responding to revelations of abuse. He says that sexual abuse of minors by a significant number of priests and religious, together with the attempts by many church authorities to conceal the abuse, constitute one of the ugliest stories ever to emerge from the Catholic Church. In this he says most clergy are innocent of this crime, but concedes a very significant problem which the Church tries to cover up and manage rather than resolve.

We will never know the true numbers, for the very reason that the Church hierarchy has in so many cases done its best to cover up the problem. Nevertheless, an incomplete list published by Broken Rites, reports that over two hundred Catholic priests and brothers were tried and convicted in Australia since 1993 for criminal offences against children. A large number of priests also faced civil actions taken out by victims who were unwilling to relive the terrible events in criminal trials. Victims run into the thousands and many of them have since committed suicide, self-harm or become drug-dependent.

A Royal Commission has commenced in Australia, with terms of reference to include child abuse in all institutions, both religious and non-religious. It appears that the overwhelming majority of complaints have been made against Catholic priests and religious, with non-Catholic clergy in a distant second place.

Answer 10

Approximately 1 % of the world's priests. However, even one isolated incident is way, way, too many.