Archbishop Dolan: Teachers Have Higher Rate of Sexual Abuse Than Priests, by Kathleen Horan, WNYC, March 31, 2011

Archbishop Dolan: Teachers Have Higher Rate of Sexual Abuse Than Priests

By Kathleen Horan
WNYC
March 31, 2011

http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/wnyc-news-blog/2011/mar/31/head-new-york-archdiocese-says-rate-sexual-abuse-among-city-public-school-teachers-higher-preists/

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan (Mario Tama/Getty Images/Getty)

Archbishop Timothy Dolan defended comments he made on his blog that the rate of sexual abuse among New York City public school teachers is higher than that among priests.

In the post dated March 18, Dolan described an encounter with a man at a Denver airport who ripped into the Catholic Church for its history of sexual abuse.

Dolan, in the post, said he responded by telling the stranger that the "rate of sexual abuse among public school teachers is 10 times higher than that of priests."

When asked where the statistics Dolan cited were from, a spokeswoman for the New York Archdiocese cited a NYS Special Commissioner of Investigation report that substantiated 78 abuse cases by teachers in 2009, and 73 such cases last year.

Another 2009 study from John Jay on incidence of priest sexual abuse was also cited.

When asked to respond to the Archbishop's blog post, the Department of Education declined to comment, and the United Federation of Teachers did not respond to WNYC's request for comment.