While pledging to stop the sexual abuse of children in the Roman Catholic Church, the nation's bishops reported Friday that they had received 1,092 new allegations in 2004 against at least 756 priests and deacons.
Most of the new allegations involved molestations that occurred between 1965 and 1974, according to a second annual audit released Friday by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Half of the Catholic clerics accused last year had been named in connection with other alleged incidents and more than 70% have died, been defrocked or removed from the ministry.
Twenty-two, or 2%, of the new charges reported in 2004 came from victims who were still underage last year, the audit said. While noting that the number of such very recent cases appeared to be small, church leaders were cautious about drawing a too optimistic conclusion that the scandal is ending.
"The crisis of sexual abuse of minors within the Catholic Church is not over. What is over is the denial that this problem exists," Kathleen McChesney, executive director of the bishops' Office of Child and Youth Protection, said at a Washington news conference Friday. She said the number of allegations probably was understated.
There are "many, many men and women who haven't come forward, who probably never will," she said. Many victims, she and other leaders said, wait years to report abuse, often until after their parents or the offender have died.
Since 1950, 11,750 allegations of sexual abuse of minors have been lodged across the country against 5,148 priests and deacons, McChesney said. Most of those reporting abuse were men who said they were between the ages of 11 and 14 when the molestations began.
Besides compiling new allegations, the study measured compliance with a landmark anti-abuse set of rules approved by the bishops in 2002. The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People calls for, among other things, training lay people and youngsters on how to spot the signs of abuse.
According to Friday's report, eight of the nation's 195 Catholic dioceses and Eastern Rite territories had not complied with the youth protection charter. However, the report said, "No one should be misled into thinking that compliance with the charter will prevent future cases of abuse from occurring."
The compliance audits of the dioceses were conducted by the Gavin Group of Boston, headed by former FBI agent William Gavin, who employed 56 auditors, many of whom were also former FBI agents.
