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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The rate of offending among priests is shaking out at roughly 2.5%.  The last ten years were the best reporting environment that's ever existed to root out a group of offenders.

The rate in public school is higher.  [/quote]Really, cite please.  I don't recall one in 30 teachers turning out to be pedophiles.  [/quote]

6.7% of students reported unwanted contact, 9.6% other forms of sexual misconduct, inclusive:

http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/misconductreview/report.pdf

The author of the report has repeatedly stated that public school abuse is much more prevalent than abuse by priests.

The report also includes a 1994 study that found that of 225 teachers identified for sexual misconduct in NYPS, NONE were reported to police and only one lost his license.

[/quote]I'm trying to wade through this thing but I'm not finding statements bout prevalence vs catholic church, and your numbers compare percentage of catholic offenders to student victims so they are not comparable statistics.  Can you point me to the relevant section of the study that you think makes the case?[/quote]

Google the author's name for her statements.

Slightly fewer than 11,000 allegations were made in the US covering the period 1950-2002.   If you multiply that by ten to cover the usual reporting rate for sexual abuse cases, that's 110,000 victims since 1950.   That may be high, since the last decade and a half has brought high social support for victims and significant civil awards, which is an ideal environment for reporting.

In contrast, there are 77 million Catholics in the US, almost all of whom would have had significant contact with priests throughout childhood.  To be even more conservative, Catholic school enrollment forty years ago, during the peak years of the allegations, was 5 million.  So let's take ALL of the 10x estimate for allegations during the entire 52-year period and express it as a percentage of the Catholic school enrollment for one year in the 60s.

It's 2.2%.

Do you see what I'm getting at?  The perception of abuse is very high, because so many allegations were made at once, but those allegations covered more than fifty years.  The real issue isn't a high prevalence of offending, but the institutional coverups and opportunities to re-offend.

But - 225/0.  Coverups were obviously not just a church issue.  My private school fired a hebephile rather than deal with the scandal, and he went on to teach elsewhere.  And frankly, if you want access to children, the priesthood is by far the most demanding and difficult way to get it.  You can get hired at the neighborhood rec center with a high school diploma, and they're not that picky.  [/quote]

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