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	Clergy Abuse: More Claims, Costs Rising By Rachell Zoll The Associated Press, carried in The Seattle Times March 31, 2006 http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/ 2002901032_churchabuse31.html WASHINGTON — New figures released Thursday by the nation's Roman Catholic bishops show the toll of the clergy sex-abuse crisis: 783 new credible claims last year, most of which date back decades, and costs of nearly $467 million. While researchers who analyzed 50 years of data on molestation claims concluded the number of new cases is declining, the church is still paying a heavy price for predatory clergy. The abuse problem was already known to have cost dioceses more than $1 billion since 1950, including some expenses paid last year. Still, Teresa Kettelkamp, director of the bishops' Office of Child and Youth Protection, said the total abuse-related expenses shelled out in 2005 were likely the largest for a single year. The total number of accusations against Catholic clergy stands at more than 12,000 since 1950. The latest statistics were released as part of the third audit U.S. bishops commissioned to restore trust in their leadership after abuse allegations soared in 2002. Auditors found that 88.5 percent of dioceses had put in place full safeguards for children required by the bishops' reforms. However, advocates for victims called the audit inadequate, since 104 of the 195 U.S. dioceses conducted a "self-audit." In previous years, teams from the Gavin Group, a private firm led by former FBI agent William Gavin, had conducted on-site audits in all participating dioceses. At a news conference, Gavin and a key church official agreed with critics that the new report didn't capture the full picture. They pointed to the recent failure of the Archdiocese of Chicago to remove an accused priest from church work for four months until he was criminally charged. The archdiocese was found to be in full compliance in the 2005 audit, but an outside investigator hired by Chicago Cardinal Francis George to look into the priest's case found a string of lapses by archdiocesan staff that left children at risk. George also is the vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Bishop William Skylstad, president of the bishops' conference, said he had "a sense of progress" and "a great sense of the continuing impact of the sexual-abuse crisis" because his own diocese of Spokane is in bankruptcy and he was recently accused of molesting a teenage girl in the 1960s. He has denied the allegation. In a companion report, researchers from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, hired by the bishops to tally abuse claims nationwide from 1950-2002, released a new analysis of that data that found the number of new abuse cases peaked in the 1970s and 1980s. In 2004, dioceses received more than 1,092 new abuse claims, in addition to the 10,667 claims the American church received from 1950-2002. However, just like the claims in 2005, most of the allegations involved incidents from decades ago. "The decrease in sex-abuse cases is real," said Karen Terry, principal investigator on the study.
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