Priest accused of molestation are removed from ministry in the Catholic Church.
In every population of human beings are going to a few sick or evil people who commit horrible crimes, even in the Church.
The percentage of pedophiles in the clergy of the Catholic Church is actually less than that of society in general.
These few terrible people do not negate the faith, hope and love of over one billion Catholics.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families report "Child Maltreatment 2006" states that sexual abuse by Catholic clergy was less than one-half of one percent of all cases.
The report states that the perpetrators relationship to the victim was:
29.1?ere Other Relatives
26.2?ere Parents
24.4?ere Others
6.9?ere Unknown or Missing People
6.1?ere Unmarried Partners of Parent
4.4?ere Friends or Neighbors
1.8?ere Child Daycare Providers
0.5?ere Other Professionals
0.3?ere Foster Parents
0.3?ere Residential Facility Staff
0.1?ere Legal Guardians
All clergy is a subset of Other Professionals and Catholic clergy is a subset of all clergy.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm06/table3_19.htm Here is the complete document:
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm06/cm06.pdf The 2009 Annual Report prepared by the Catholic bishops identifies 14 allegations of childhood sexual abuse in the U.S. Catholic Church in the 10 years from 2000 to 2009. Please note that there were 65,600,000 Catholics in the U.S. in 2010.
http://www.usccb.org/ocyp/annual_report/9_CH4.pdfhttp://cara.georgetown.edu/CARAServices/requestedchurchstats.html The 2007 Associated Press investigation identifies 2,570 public school teachers who, from 2001 through 2005, had their teaching licenses "taken away, denied, surrendered voluntarily, or restricted" because of sexual misconduct with minors.
Here is George Weigel's column detailing the Media's feeding frenzy on the Catholic Church:
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/03/scoundrel-times Here is Father Thomas Brundage's account (he was the judge) of the trial of Father Lawrence Murphy and the misreporting of the media:
http://catholicanchor.org/wordpress/?p=601 Newsweek: Priests seem to abuse children at the same rate as everyone else.
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/04/07/mean-men.html With love in Christ.