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	260 Abuse Reports in Protestant Churches By Rose French Chicago Tribune June 15, 2007 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-abusejun15,1,4840717.story?coll= chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true Nashville — Three companies that insure the majority of Protestant churches in America say they typically receive upward of 260 reports each year of people under 18 being sexually abused by clergy, church staff, volunteers or congregation members. The figures released to The Associated Press offer a glimpse into what has long been an extremely difficult phenomenon to pin down — the frequency of sex abuse in Protestant congregations. The Roman Catholic Church has said there have been 13,000 credible accusations against Catholic clerics since 1950. But Protestant numbers have been harder to come by and sketchier because the denominations are less centralized than the Catholic church. Some of the numbers come from Church Mutual Insurance Co. of Merrill, Wis.; GuideOne Insurance Co. of West Des Moines, Iowa; and Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Co. of Ft. Wayne, Ind. Together, the companies insure 165,495 churches and worship centers for liability against child sex abuse and other sexual misconduct, mostly Protestant congregations but a few other faiths as well. They also insure more than 5,500 religious schools, camps and other organizations. Church Mutual reported an average of about 100 sex abuse cases a year involving minors over the past decade. GuideOne, which has about half the clients of Church Mutual, said it has received an average of 160 reports of sex abuse against minors every year for two decades. Brotherhood Mutual said it has received an average of 73 reports of child sex abuse and other sexual misconduct every year for 15 years. However, Brotherhood does not specify which victims are younger than 18 so it is impossible to accurately add that to the total cases.
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