BishopAccountability.org
	Editorial: Bishops' Incomplete Report Providence Journal May 31, 2011 http://www.projo.com/opinion/editorials/content/ED_priests31_05-31-11_K8O8L7R_v30.371efdd.html The report written by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops about sexual abuse by priests has left many people mystified. The report attributed an apparent increase in abuse (or at least in reported abuse) of young people, primarily males, to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and '70s. The document said that many priests were unprepared for the confusion and turmoil presented by that upheaval. But it said that the cases of abuse started to decline in the '80s. It basically skirted the complex roles of priestly celibacy and sexual identity. And the report didn't delve into the transfer, to try to evade public scandal, that some bishops engineered for priests suspected and/or accused of serial sexual abuse. Indeed, the document writers seemed to go out of their way to protect bishops anxious to get this public-relations nightmare off their backs. But, let's face it, this was a serious management problem. Some bishops were just not supervising and disciplining their people properly and some were in effect abetting serious violations of criminal law. There are some interesting data in this report, but we'll need to await a more impartial one than this to fully understand what led to the church's disastrous sex scandals. Those scandals have hurt all of society, not just the Catholic community. Among other things the money needed to settle lawsuits has reduced the resources available to the church for the noble services it provides to the public, particularly hospitals, schools and many facilities for the poor and the otherwise marginalized.
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