It's not hundreds of millions - it's actually 2.6 billion.
That's an average of about $400,000 per case for approcimately 6700 cases spanning the timeframe of 1950-2002.
Only a plurality of those cases were ever positively substantiated - most of the settlements came in the usual American fashion of a plaintiff's attorney putting together a class action suit, combining several convincing and verifiable claims with a larger class of claims varying in substance and believability.
The fact remains that a sizeable number of Catholic priests preyed upon several thousand young people - including almost 500 pre-teens - over this 52 year period.
These crimes were committed against a total population of approximately 120 million American Catholics over two generations.
This means that approximately one-twentieth of one percent of Roman Catholics were directly violated by these criminals.
Therefore my view that the media portrayal - which implies that every other Catholic child has been molested and that every other Catholic priest is a child molester - is a false and slanderous portrayal.
Thanks for your candor.
Sobering.