New Catholic Sex Abuse Claims Top 1,000
756 Catholic priests and deacons are accused.





Printer Friendly Version Over the last year, U.S. Catholic bishops received 1,092 new allegations of sexual abuse against at least 756 Catholic priests and deacons, the Associated Press reports.

Half of the accused priests over the past year had been previously accused of abuse, said Kathleen McChesney, executive director of the bishops' Office of Child and Youth Protection. Most of the alleged incidents occurred decades ago: 72 percent of the priests were either dead, defrocked or removed from public ministry before the newest allegations were received, McChesney said.

The information came as the bishops released a new national audit of U.S. dioceses to determine how well they've complied with the child protection policy American prelates instituted more than three years ago at the height of the clergy molestation crisis. Teams of auditors, comprised mainly of former FBI agents, compiled data in visits to dioceses across the country.

But the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said the audits were "minimal and misleading," contending bishops had too much control over who participated in the review.

A statistical review released a year ago showed 4,392 priests had been accused of molesting minors in 10,667 cases between 1950 and 2002.