You want 'sources', pal?  Be careful what you ask for.

Remember, I was willing to drop this whole thing. 

The following is a verbatim (that means 'unedited', pal)  article, quoted in its entirety, from a Catholic periodical.

The article is written by the editor-in-chief,  a Jesuit priest.

The priest cites two major academic studies commissioned specifically for the purpose of determining the scope of the 'scandal' and to confirm or dispel commonly held myths by the general public.

I will not comment, emphasize, highlight or point out anything.

I will leave it to the reader (that's you, pal) to make up his own mind as to whether he's going to call Father Thomas J Reese, of the Society of Jesus, editor-in-chief of America Magazine ('the 'National Catholic Weekly'), a liar.

One thing I must correct and for which I must humbly apologize.

I mistakenly claimed that 'tens of millions' of dollars had been paid to settle these lawsuits.

The correct figure, as you will see below, was $1.5 billion.

And for the third time, pal, you show me where I said that 'tens of thousands of priests' were involved in the abuse.

Prove your claim or withdraw it. Now.

Read it and weep. 

---------------

 Facts, Myths and Questions

Thomas J. Reese, S.J., | MARCH 22, 2004

For those who have been following the sexual abuse crisis in the American Catholic Church since the mid-1980’s, the reports by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People provided confirmation of hunches and the destruction of myths.

At the same time, they left many questions unanswered. The myths have been promoted by people on both sides of the debate—those who want to beat up on the church and those who want to downplay the crisis. But what are the facts reported in this study of sexual abuse in the church between 1950 and 2002?

Myths About the Priests Myth: Less than 1 percent of the clergy are involved in sexual abuse.

Fact: 4,392 priests, or 4 percent of the total number of members of the Catholic clergy between 1950 and 2002, have had allegations made against them. [Editor’s note: As of the end of 2005, over 5,000 priests have been accused of abusing almost 13,000 minors.]

 Myth: Much of the abuse was not really serious.

Fact: All incidents reported to John Jay involved more than verbal abuse or pornography. Only 3 percent of the acts involved only touching over the victim’s clothes. On the other hand, 57 percent of the acts involved touching under the victim’s clothes, 27 percent involved the cleric performing oral sex, and 25 percent involved penile penetration or attempted penetration.

Myth: Most of the abusers were serial offenders.

Fact: 56 percent of priests had only one allegation against them. The 149 priests who had more than 10 allegations against them were responsible for abusing 2,960 victims, thus accounting for 27 percent of the allegations.

Myth: These offending priests were “dirty old men.”

Fact: Half the priests were 35 years of age or younger at the time of the first instance of alleged abuse.

Myth: Many of the abusive priests had been victims of sexual abuse as children.

Fact: Fewer than 7 percent of the priests were reported to have experienced physical, sexual or emotional abuse as children.

Myth: Celibacy caused the sex abuse crisis.

Fact: 96 percent of priests (all of them obliged by celibacy) were not involved in sexual abuse.

Myth: Homosexuality caused the abuse crisis:

Fact: No one knows the exact percentage of priests who are homosexual. Estimates have ranged from 10 percent to 60 percent. In any case, most homosexual priests were not involved in the sexual abuse of minors.

Myth: Most abuse was done under the influence of alcohol or drugs when the priest did not know what he was doing.

Fact: Although 19 percent of the accused priests had alcohol or substance abuse problems, only 9 percent used drugs or alcohol during the alleged instances of abuse.

Myths About the Victims

Myth: There were 60,000 to 100,000 victims of sexual abuse.

Fact: While we know only the number of victims who reported their abuse to bishops, it is difficult to see how there could be 6 to 10 times as many victims as the number (10,667) who came forward.

Myth: The victims did not approach the church but sent their lawyers.

Fact: Only 20 percent of the allegations were reported to the church by lawyers representing victims. Almost 50 percent of the allegations were reported by victims, plus another 14 percent by parents or guardians.

Myth: Most of the abuse occurred with older teenagers.

Fact: Only 15 percent of the victims were 16 to 17 years of age; 51 percent were between the ages of 11 and 14.

Myth: Abusers targeted children of single mothers.

Fact: Only 11 percent of victims were living with their mothers only. Almost 79 percent of the victims had both parents living at home.

Myth: Most abusers threatened their victims.

Fact: Only 8 percent of victims were threatened by their abuser. Most abusers indulged in “grooming,” a premeditated behavior intended to manipulate the potential victim into complying with the sexual abuse; 39 percent of the clerics offered alcohol or drugs to their victims. Myths About the Church

Myth: The abuse is a result of the seminary training after the Second Vatican Council (1963-65).

Fact: Almost 70 percent of the abusive priests were ordained before 1970, after attending pre-Vatican II seminaries or seminaries that had had little time to adapt to the reforms of Vatican II.

 Myth: This problem is unique to the Catholic Church:

Fact: The John Jay report notes that in the period 1992-2000, the number of substantiated sexual abuse cases in American society as a whole has been between 89,355 and 149,800 annually. At a minimum, this number for one year is eight times the total number of alleged abuses in the church over a period of 52 years.

Myth: The abuse is still going on at the same rate.

Fact: The number of alleged abuses increased in the 1960’s, peaked in the 70’s, declined in the 80’s and by the 90’s had returned to the levels of the 1950’s.

Myth: The Catholic Church has been slower to respond to this crisis than the rest of American society.

Fact: The John Jay study reports that for the country as a whole the number of substantiated sexual abuse cases peaked at approximately 149,800 in 1992 and declined by 2 percent to 11 percent per year through 2000. Since sexual abuse in the church appears to have peaked in the 1970’s and declined in the 80’s and 90’s, the church seems to have been ahead of the rest of American society.

Myth: Billions of dollars have been spent by the church dealing with this crisis.

Fact: Though the cost may eventually reach a billion dollars, the figure reported by John Jay was $472,507,094.

[Editor’s note: CNS reported on March 31, 2006, that the costs had reached $l.5 billion.]

Myth: The church is spending more money on treating priests and hiring lawyers than on the victims.

Fact: 83 percent of the amount spent by the church went to compensation for victims; another 4 percent went to treatment for victims.

Myth: The church knew about these allegations from the very beginning.

Fact: According to the John Jay report, one-third of the accusations were made in the years 2002-3. Two-thirds have been reported since 1993. “Thus, prior to 1993, only one-third of cases were known to church officials,” says the report.

Myth: The bishops should leave this problem to the criminal justice system.

Fact: When allegations were made known to the police, only one in three accused priests was charged with a crime; only 3 percent of all priests with allegations served prison time. There seems to be no correlation between the severity of the offense and whether the alleged victim contacted the police or whether the priest was ultimately charged or convicted, according to the report.

 Myth: The abusive priests always/never received treatment.

 Fact: Nearly 40 percent of priests alleged to have committed sexual abuse participated in treatment programs. The more allegations a priest had, the more likely he was to participate in treatment, according to the report.

More Research Needed

The John Jay report, which covers the period of 1950-2002, is an excellent first step in the research on this problem, but it raises as many questions as it answers:

• 4,392 priests (4 percent of the clergy) were accused of sexual abuse. Is this better or worse than other professions—teachers, social workers, scout leaders, doctors, lawyers, psychologists—or the total male population? No one knows, because comparable studies have not been done.

 • 10,667 individuals reported abuse. Are there more victims? Definitely. The bishops could report only on those who had come forward. One-third of the allegations were reported in 2002-3. How many more are out there?

• A few serial abusers (147) were responsible for a quarter of all allegations. Why were these men not spotted and dealt with by other priests and church officials?

• More than half the priests had only one allegation against them. Is this because their names were never made public, or were they truly one-time offenders? Would it be safe to return any of these men to ministry?

• The number of alleged abuses increased in the 1960’s, peaked in the 70’s, declined in the 80’s and by the 90’s were at the levels of the 1950’s. Were there more cases prior to 1960 that simply were not reported or recorded? Will there be more cases reported for the 90’s as time goes on? Or did most bishops get their act together in the late 80’s, so that most abusers were dealt with and potential abusers were not ordained?

 • Fewer religious priests (2.5 percent) had allegations against them than diocesan priests (4.3 percent). Is the “Lone Ranger” model of priestly life detrimental to the life of celibacy?

• Eighty-one percent of the victims were male. Why? What role does homosexuality play in this crisis? There is no hard data on what percentage of the clergy is homosexual, because the bishops refuse to allow such a study.

• Was there a higher incidence of abuse by priests who entered the seminary at a younger age—that is, who entered high school seminaries—compared with those who entered college or post-college seminaries?

• Did the treatment programs to which abusive priests were sent have an impact on reducing abuse?

What Next?

The John Jay report can be only the beginning, not the end, of research on the problem of sexual abuse in the church. The more the problem is studied, the more likely it is that the church will change from being part of the problem to being part of the solution to the epidemic of sexual abuse in our country, where 20 percent of women and 15 percent of men report that they were victims of child sexual abuse as children, with about 80 percent of the victims saying they were violated by a family member.

 Thomas J. Reese, S.J., is editor in chief of America.

https://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=3497

 ------------------------------

Nationalized Healthcare is a DEATH SENTENCE.

Democrats are the party of killers, racists, pedophiles, bribe takers, serial sexual harassers, liars, perjurers, obstructors of justice and treasonous frauds.

You've made that false claim twice now and you can't admit you were wrong.

Here's some of what you've wrote so far; paraphrased, but you've written every word of it:

"I will pray for you, but shut the Hell up!"

"I hope you find the peace you're seeking, you immature, irresponsible liar (yes, you've repeatedly called me a liar)."

"God bless you, you arrogant, hypocritical, condescending fool."

Now come on. Who's the hypocrite here?

BTW: How do ya like my sources?

Are you going to call a Jesuit priest, editor-in-chief of a major Catholic periodical, a liar?

If the article is not true, then the author is a liar. There's no middle ground.

You've got quite a dilemma here, pal.

And it's only because you're so damned hardheaded.

You can't admit that I've sourced every claim I've made, but to refute me you've got to say, or at least imply, that a Catholic priest is lying in a Catholic publication.

I'm waiting to see how you squirm out of this one.

Nationalized Healthcare is a DEATH SENTENCE.

Democrats are the party of killers, racists, pedophiles, bribe takers, serial sexual harassers, liars, perjurers, obstructors of justice and treasonous frauds.

  Tailgunner,

You are one condescending fool my friend. No one has called you a delusional liar. You ARE making up facts, you ARE peddling misinformation and NOTHING of what you have said, not even your claim that I called you a delusional liar is based on reality, facts, history or any type of actual numbers. If you want to equate my words in your mind to me allegedly accusing you of being a delusional liar, that is on you.

You need to do this now because you have lost this debate. Sad that you are using Liberal tactics to try to get away with the lies that you are trying to pass as facts. Very sad, I would say that you need to be ashamed of yourself, but as you have proven so far, shame is not something you are familiar with.

You seem to be a big boy who doesn't mind claiming that someone else is irrational and unhinged, as you claimed I have been in this forum. But you get offended when you equate in your mind the words of someone else to insults. Grow up my immature Conservative. As we both know, you are acting like a hypocrite. I tried to avoid telling you this last night in the hope that you were a mature individual that did not realize how hypocritical you are acting. It is ok for you to literally call me unhinged and irrational, but look at you get all offended and how your panties have all been twisted when you equate my words to words I have never uttered. Sad my friend, sad. I will pray for you.

My friend, the one that is irrational and unhinged is you. I have tried to be nice, respectful, treated you as an equal. Yet your posts are full of condescension, lies, half-truths, opinions and you are trying to pass these as facts. You are the one that needs to deal with your believe that I have called you a delusional liar, not me. I will not apologize for something that you have imagined that I said. You have issues my friend. I hope you aren't too involved in the Conservative movement, you will do us great harm.

The one that needs to take a hike and analyze their disrespectful, childish and immature behavior is you my friend. May God Bless you and help you find whatever it is you are seeking. You come across as an arrogant, condescending, immature person. I hope that in life, you are much better than you have proven yourself to be here on NB.

this is me standing here, not taking a hike, but watching you walk away with your tail between your legs. As I said, otherwise very rational and thoughtful Conservatives lose these qualities when it comes to their attacks on the Roman Catholic Church.

Son, you deal with your delusional liar statement, since it is YOU and ONLY YOU who has typed these words on this forum.

...is failing to vigorously defend the honor and innocence of someone who trusts you.

If anyone is expected to uphold moral principles against immoral people and institutions I would expect the Catholic Church to unhesitatingly do the right thing by their priests and their parishioners.

Why reward 'false witness' when it is prohibited by the Decalogue itself?

We can add this to the failures of Church leadership in this case.

I say again that if the Church had vigorously defended the earlest lawsuits then, win or lose, they wouldn't be seen later as a soft target by lazy ambulance chasers.

Their failure to do so has cost them over a billion dollars, the reputations of thousands of priests who may well have been innocent, the respect of much of the world and the trust of untold numbers of Catholics.

"God knows who is innocent."

Absolutely correct. But when God's representatives here on earth act like they don't know, and worse, don't seem to care, people notice.

I've been the subject of a groundless lawsuit based on racism. My employer acknowledged I was not at fault but settled the case anyway.

I resigned very shortly after in large part over the way they handled it.

My doctor was named along with dozens of others in a malpractice lawsuit. Although she was not involved in the actual incident, her insurance company settled without her consent, approval or knowledge.

Now she's uninsurable and cannot return to private practice. She had to seek employment with the State of Florida. (Health care reform, anyone?)

It's one of the most devastating things one can endure when a person who's only doing their job is thrown under the bus, along with their career and reputation, by his superiors because of their cynical politics.

Like it or not, the public measures the acts of the Church by their own standards. When they see more than a billion dollars painstakingly collected from innumerable parishioners paid out to over ten thousand individuals over allegations against more than four thousand priests, and are then told that most of them are really innocent and the claims are largely groundless...well, we are reminded of Penn and Teller's famous line.

The Church paid over $1.6 billion with a B because they believed that it was more likely than not they would lose the majority of these suits in court.

"We must not jump to conclusions."

After $1.6 billion is paid out to over 10,000 plaintiffs for the alleged actions of over 4,000 priests over a thirty-year period, it's perfectly OK to form a conclusion.

I invite anyone who is genuinely interested in this to read the article at the link below. It's a Catholic publication which references two in-depth studies on this subject.

https://www.americam...

Nationalized Healthcare is a DEATH SENTENCE.

Democrats are the party of killers, racists, pedophiles, bribe takers, serial sexual harassers, liars, perjurers, obstructors of justice and treasonous frauds.