THE US: Researchers in the United States who are conducting a national survey on sex abuse by Catholic clergy have said that a draft report leaked to CNN, details of which were reported this week, was a month old and did not contain all the information submitted by dioceses. Patsy McGarry Religious Affairs Correspondent reports
The John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, which is conducting the survey, said in a statement that the statistics CNN reported "were apparently taken from a preliminary report completed in January 2004".
The college also said it had received new information since then, some submitted as recently as last Friday, and that this latest data included corrections to earlier drafts of the survey.
CNN had reported that 4,450 (approximately 4 per cent) of the 110,000 US Catholic clergy who served since 1950 had been accused of abusing minors. The draft report also said 11,000 abuse claims had been filed against the churchmen during that period. The figures were higher than previously estimated by some victims' groups, media, and church officials in the US.
The final survey report is due to be published on February 27th by the US National Review Board, a lay watchdog panel set up by the Catholic bishops of the US in response to the clerical child sex abuse scandal there.
It commissioned John Jay College to collect information from the 195 US Catholic dioceses on the number of accused priests; the number of abuse claims; and the legal and counselling costs associated with clerical sexual misconduct over five decades.
Media reports in the US have also said that the survey report will disclose that the Catholic Church there had paid out more than $500 million in the settlement of such abuse cases between 1950 and 2002.
Board members contacted by the US media this week would not say whether the statistics, as reported by CNN were accurate. They stressed the report was not finished, and that any numbers tallied so far could change before the study was made public.
The bishops authorized the survey as part of a series of reforms meant to restore trust in their leadership after more than two years of scandal over how they had responded to allegations of abuse.
Meanwhile the retired Bishop of Phoenix, the Most Rev Thomas O'Brien (68) was convicted by a jury in an Arizona court this week of leaving the scene of a fatal accident.
It follows a hit-and-run accident last June in which a man was killed.