The Archdiocese of Cincinnati has released a report that shows 49 priests were accused of 188 instances of child abuse from 1950 through 2003.
That represents about 6 percent of the 827 priests who have served in the archdiocese since 1950.
| What the records show | |
| •87 complaints of child abuse were filed against 33 priests from 1950-2002.
•101 complaints were filed in 2003. •Of those 81 complaints were against priests previously accused. •20 complaints were against 16 priests not previously accused. •A total of 827 priests served in the Archdiocese between 1950 and 2002. |
The archdiocese has forwarded the figures encompassing the years 1950 to 2002 to a national review board that will release a national study of child abuse in the U.S. Catholic Church on Friday. The 2003 numbers were not part of that report.
The local numbers for the 1950 to 2002 time period show 33 priests accused of 87 instances of abuse.
Another 101 new complaints were brought in 2003. Twenty of them were against 16 priests previously not accused, and 81 were against previously accused priests.
The archdiocese did not release the names of the accused priests.
The report will be published in Friday's Catholic Telegraph newspaper of the archdiocese, said archdiocese spokesman Dan Andriacco.
"We are confronting the sad history of abuse in the church, and we are being as open about it as we can,'' said Andriacco. "This is something no other institution has ever done, so there is no way to compare it to other institutions, but comparison is not really the issue."
"It's important that we not get lost in the numbers," he said. "Every one of those numbers represents somebody who has been abused by a representative of the church. It's something we regret very much. There is nothing we can do to change the past, but we can confront it and give as complete an accounting as possible, and urge anyone who has an accusation to come forward.''
The numbers reported today are markedly different from those first released by the archdiocese.
On March 14, 2002, Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk confirmed as many as 20 archdiocesan employees had sexually abused children since 1982. That included five priests returned to the ministry. But today's report counts 16 other priests identified after the archbishop's statement as possible abusers.
Many of the 2003 accusations were brought as parts of lawsuits against the archdiocese, Andriacco said. He said the notoriety raised by recent court actions and p ublicity of abuse undoubtedly prompted many reports of abuse from years past.
He said several people had said they made reports to the church, but there was no record of those reports in the archdiocesan files. "They may have reported it to a parish priest or guidance counselor, and it never got to the chancery office," Andriacco said. He said church regulations since 1993 require that all accusations be reported to the chancery office.
Of the 16 priests accused for the first time in 2003, three are on administrative leave, seven are dead, one was laicized, one left the ministry many years ago without formal laicization and is now dead according to the attorney who brought the allegation, three were not identified by the accuser, and one was later cleared when an accusation was found to be without substance.
The numbers presented in the report are all of the accusations, not only the ones that have been substantiated, Andriacco said. The numbers also include anonymous allegations and allegations that did not identify priests.
The 87 accusations against 33 priests from 1950 to 2002 includes one accusation against Cardinal Joseph Bernardin that was later withdrawn.
The report in the Telegraph says, "We don't know how the percentage of offenders compares to society at large or to any other segment of society. What we know is that the only acceptable percentage of priests abusing children is zero."
The disposition of the 33 priests who were accused from 1950 through 2002 is: 12 placed on administrative leave pending possible permanent removal from the ministry, 11 dead, two voluntarily sought laicization, one dismissed from the ministry, seven whose accusations were investigated and determined to be without substance.
The report says about two thirds of the accusations were about incidents that happened between 1975 and 1984.
From 1950 to 2002, the archdiocese spent a total of about $2.7 mill ion on expenses related to child abuse by priests, including settlements and counseling to help the victims, counseling for priests and related legal fees.
The archdiocese on Nov. 20, 2003 pleaded no contest to charges of failing to report a crime and has established a $3 million fund and a local review board to compensate victims. The plea and the fund were part of a deal with Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen's office.
Allen's office conducted an 18-month investigation into the archdiocese's handling of alleged sexual abuse by priests.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops commissioned John Jay College of Criminal Justice to survey all of the 195 dioceses, archdioceses and eparchies of the United States to provide a statistical picture of child abuse by priests since 1950. That report asked the church governing bodies to submit figures from 1950 through 2002.
Andriacco said compliance was not mandatory, but more than 190 or the 195 church bodies complied with the request. He said the archdiocese added the 2003 figures, which were not required by the John Jay College report, to make sure local church members have as much information as possible.
The figures compiled by the Cincinnati Archdiocese and released today and figures compiled by the Covington Diocese and released in August with an update last week, will be included in the report's count, as will reports from other Ohio and Kentucky dioceses.
The Diocese of Covington reports 205 instances of abuse by 35 of its 364 priests from 1950 to February 2004. That's about 9.6 percent of the total diocesan priests.
A CNN report on a draft of the national John Jay report has stated that about 10 percent of the nation's priests have been accused, but the the final number is not available until Friday's formal release of the report.
Andriacco said 14 priests are now on administrative leave, which is the first step to removing them from the priesthood. A bishop or archbishop cannot remove a priest. That must come from the Vatican, Andriacco said. He said laicization, which is a formal request by the priest himself to be released from the priesthood, is often a quicker process.
Andriacco said two have been removed from the ministry since 1993, when the diocese adopted a Decree on Child Abuse that set out specific regulations for dealing with abuse claims and abusive priests.
"Even before the adoption of our first Decree on Child Abuse in 1993, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati long made it a practice to extend pastoral care to survivors of child abuse,'' the archbishop said in his report to the archdiocese in the Telegraph.
"I have met with many victims and I will meet with any others who wish to meet with me, In addition, the Archdiocese has often paid for counseling to help victims. In some cases, the Archdiocese also reached settlements. To my knowledge, these settlements never included a prohibition on the victim reporting the abuse to legal authorities or to anyone else.
"Some victims feel that we have not done enough. I agree -- because I don't think we can ever do enough. There is no way to fully repaid damage done to a child."
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