Twice that? Are we talking raw numbers, or percentages?
The John Jay Study (see threads here, here, and outside coverage here) - commissioned by the U.S. Catholic Bishops' National Review Board itself - found that the number of Catholic priest abusers equalled four percent of the entire Catholic priest population. The John Jay study's findings are more than conclusive - they're exhaustive of the entire US population of Catholic priests. Now by comparison, every study I've been shown of "Protestant" abuse included volunteers and laypersons, something the John Jay Study did not cover among Catholic parishes; if we exclude them from the "Protestant" studies (to create a "pastor vs priest" apple-to-apple comparison), we arrive at a roughly 1% abuse rate for all "Protestant" pastors, or (in other words) at least a four times greater likelihood that any given Catholic priest will be a sexual predator as compared to any given "Protestant" pastor. And that's according to the numbers and studies that Catholics keep telling me about.
In short, any raw numbers (i.e. "x number of claims filed per year") are meaningless. What's more telling is the percentage of the abusers out of the whole, and in that regard, the Catholic Church is far sicker than the "Protestant" Church. In that regard, the John Jay Study is positively damning.
Let me throw in one caveat to those comparisons. I found something interesting when I broke down the "Protestant" abuse cases by denomination / affiliation / theological leanings. The more free will / Arminian / synergistic the theology is, and the more independent the association is (as opposed to denominational affiliation), the higher the abuse statistic goes - and conversely, if you just look at the Reformed Protestant denominations, the number of "Protestant" abuse cases statistically drops off the chart by comparison. It's only the average of all "Protestant" pastors that is around 1%. Some independent churches have statistics that are far, far higher than the Catholic average of 4%. But we're not the ones who consider them "Protestant" - it's Catholics that insist on applying that label to them.
In short, any raw numbers (i.e. "x number of claims filed per year") are meaningless. What's more telling is the percentage of the abusers out of the whole, and in that regard, the Catholic Church is far sicker than the "Protestant" Church. In that regard, the John Jay Study is positively damning.
Let me throw in one caveat to those comparisons. I found something interesting when I broke down the "Protestant" abuse cases by denomination / affiliation / theological leanings. The more free will / Arminian / synergistic the theology is, and the more independent the association is (as opposed to denominational affiliation), the higher the abuse statistic goes - and conversely, if you just look at the Reformed Protestant denominations, the number of "Protestant" abuse cases statistically drops off the chart by comparison. It's only the average of all "Protestant" pastors that is around 1%. Some independent churches have statistics that are far, far higher than the Catholic average of 4%. But we're not the ones who consider them "Protestant" - it's Catholics that insist on applying that label to them.
Thank you, Alex, for helping to keep us on the side of truth.
***Now by comparison, every study I’ve been shown of “Protestant” abuse included volunteers and laypersons, something the John Jay Study did not cover among Catholic parishes; if we exclude them from the “Protestant” studies (to create a “pastor vs priest” apple-to-apple comparison), we arrive at a roughly 1% abuse rate for all “Protestant” pastors, or (in other words) at least a four times greater likelihood that any given Catholic priest will be a sexual predator as compared to any given “Protestant” pastor. ***
With true apples to apples, we need to include all those individuals that are ordained or otherwise commissioned into a position of authority with the church.
***Some independent churches have statistics that are far, far higher than the Catholic average of 4%. But we’re not the ones who consider them “Protestant” - it’s Catholics that insist on applying that label to them.***
I agree that individual churches have individual abuse rates. I find that interesting regarding the relative level of ‘free will’. I had always thought that the stricter and more insular the sect, the greater the child abuse is likely to be, but I hadn’t considered free will as a contributor. I’d like to look further.
Oh. The Protestants are self identified. They are the ones who split from the Catholic Church, and then began the furious process of further splitting. Where are the roots? If they are in the Protestant Reformation, then the sects are Protestants.