Yes the headline is a little confusing. You'll find that most (not all) of the articles here are by people who agree with Catholicism. There are some arguing contrary viewpoints in the comments. There are a collection of people, some of whom used to be here and got banned, others who are astill here, over at

http://outshine-the-sun.blogspot.com/

if you want an alternative viewpoint.

You got me wondering where the "anti-Catholic" websites are on the internet. A google search of "anti-Catholic" seems to find mostly "pro-Catholic" sites. Some of the other posters here might have suggestions. If you like some humour with your theology there is always things like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGASvVqzOa0&t=3s

Lots of people have found that the RC teachings do not make a whole lot of sense. But if the Catholic system works for you, rock on. Yet it would be great for the rest of us if you stop short of signing on to the form of Catholicism that wants the state to impose church teachings on the population at large.

I suspect that trying to find firm figures about events that evolved over many decades is a fool's errand. I will not argue with the statistics you cite, since the sad truth is that any amount of such behavior is absolutely unacceptable in any society, and even more so in one that proclaims itself to be the supernatural revelation of God himself.

If the Romans were "without excuse" for failing to know God's existence, then for God's Church to fail to root out this behavior in its midst is even more clearly "without excuse."

Still, even if the worst interpretation of the John Jay report is given, and the entire four percent of priest accused were guilty as sin, the fact remains that twenty-four out of twenty-five priests that average Catholics dealt with and trusted in the last decades were not involved in this sin and could be trusted with the souls entrusted to their care.

You are also right about the unique problem in the Church that there is a clear chain of command which should enable bishops and cardinals to stop the abuse if they acted with courage and principle. The fact that some did not do so, and presently do not do so, speaks for itself.

Personally, I suspect that most of the abuse followed Vatican II and entailed priests whose commitment to traditional moral norms was less than rigorous. It also may have entailed individuals who "found a priestly vocation" at a time when any other life path might have led them into conscription for Vietnam warfare. I do understand that the number of such abuse cases has fallen sharply in recent years and that much of the abuse now coming to light took place decades ago, not at the present time.

All that said, I think the ultimate question we must ask ourselves is, "Even if the worst of these allegations is true, does this prove that the Catholic Church is not the manifestation of God's intended Christian revelation?"

As embarrassing as these sexual abuse cases may be as a dismal blight on the body of Christ, I think you still know the answer to this question.

Christ came to save sinners, not saints. You noticed it yourself earlier. Judas, one of the twelve Apostles (higher than a cardinal?), betrayed the Son of God in a manner leading to his own leader's unbelievably cruel death nailed to the Cross. Was Jesus himself responsible for Judas' sin because he picked him as his disciple?

No excuses, though. The Church must clean up its act from top to bottom.

The study itself was done, not by an organ of the Catholic Church, but by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York. It covers the time period from 1950 to 2002.

It is not the John Jay Report that is being questioned. It is Donohue's misuse of it, not to mention his disagreement with the Report on the issue of homosexuality.

Let's take this passage from Donohue, which you quoted above, and your own comment:

“The 2004 report by the John Jay College for Criminal Justice found that 4 percent of priests nationwide had a credible accusation made against them between 1950-2002. That is the figure everyone quotes. But the report also notes that roughly half that number were substantiated.”

To put these statistics in perspective, this means that of 109,694 active clergy during this period, 4,392 were accused, and, of those, only 252 were convicted, which is less than one-tenth of one percent of the total clergy.

It is unclear what Donohue (and you) mean by "substantiated." For example, the report says the following:

Of the alleged incidents investigated by the dioceses and religious communities, a definitive result of the investigation was reported for 5,681 cases. Of these cases, 4,570, or 80%, were substantiated; 1,028, or 18%, were unsubstantiated; 83, or 1.5%, were found to be false. Priests were reported to deny the allegations in 56 cases. Of the investigations that did not produce a definitive result, in many cases the priest was deceased at the time of the allegation or the investigation was ongoing at the time the survey was submitted to the study.

Regarding convictions the report says the following:

To date, the police have been contacted about 1,021 priests with allegations of abuse, or 24% of our total. Nearly all of these reports have led to investigations, and 384 instances have led to criminal charges. Of those priests for whom information about dispositions is available, 252 were convicted and at least 100 of those served time in prison. Thus, 6% of all priests against whom allegations were made were convicted and about 2% received prison sentences to date.

Also note the following from the John Jay report:

It is impossible to determine from our surveys what percent of all actual cases of abuse that occurred between 1950 and 2002 have been reported to the Church and are therefore in our dataset. Allegations of child sexual abuse are made gradually over an extended time period and it is likely that further allegations will be made with respect to recent time periods covered in our surveys. Less than 13% of allegations were made in the year in which the abuse allegedly began, and more than 25% of the allegations were made more than 30 years after the alleged abuse began.

We really have no better way of knowing the extent of priestly abuse in the years covered by the John Jay report than the authors of the report themselves. It seems pointless to me to attempt to second-guess them using their own statistics. Certainly the number of convictions in courts of law is not a good indicator of the extent of the problem.

One very good reason why the Catholic Church is "singled out" is that it is a worldwide organization with a well-defined structure allowing responsibility to be assigned to the organization itself when something goes wrong. The priests report to the bishops and the bishops report to the pope. The buck stops in Rome. It is quite different for the tens of thousands of public school systems.

So what type of outside authority should provide oversight? Who can see the inner workings of a man's heart? Who or how should one chose such a supreme court? Some "crimes" were rather sins committed between unwilling but complicit adults--seminarians who, out of some sense of ambition, shame, fear, curiosity or some other culpability or misguided sense of propriety--now come forward. Should these too be punished? Read carefully the facts of the McCarrick scandal. If I have my facts right, McCarrick did abuse an 11-year-old for ?more than 20 years? and for this, yes, our criminal justice system should apply.

But what should we do about the majority of McCarrick's sins, his adult seminarian partners? How guilty is he/are they?

So you say: 1) we should dissolve the organization, but 2) no member [of the organization] should be sacrificed by others. How reconcile these two statements? Do I misunderstand your statements?

Since these type of scandals have been happening since the very beginning of the church with little change it is part of the organization. A possible solution is to dissolve this organization and start over with oversight and transparency. A second possible solution is to allow an outside authority to audit, enforce and prosecute crimes. The church can not be more than its parts or this will happen again and again. The church is its members and no member should be sacrificed by others. A crime is a crime and there laws in place to address what to do. The fact that a crime was committed in private or within an organization does not means the laws do not apply. The church may answer to a higher authority but it also answers to the society in which it operates.

What is it that signifies the lack of remorse? What would prove remorse to exist? Once defined, how could we measure if and when it would be sufficient.

Are all guilty for criminal sins of others? If One Person were to assume all guilt--for instance, if the current Pope could or would oblate himself--would that be sufficient? Or should the Church do likewise?

Should we allow it a continued existence as it may be too big to fail?

(NONE of my remark should be construed so as to excuse current criminal sins...Rather it is simply to ask how sin may be resolved. How ought we deal with it? How do the rest of us hold a person accountable when he/and an unwilling or culpably complicit institution or partner act within the sphere of their private or intimate selves?) Prison? Death sentence? Public stoning?

Even granting the distinctions you make here, see my comment below about the findings of the John Jay study as well as its status totally independent of Donohue and the Catholic Church, although it was commissioned by the U.S. Bishops Conference in 2004.

Whether one likes the tone of the Donohue report or not is irrelevant to the major study that it cites, namely the John Jay study which was commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The study itself was done, not by an organ of the Catholic Church, but by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York. It covers the time period from 1950 to 2002.

It is not logical to allow criticism of the Catholic League, however justified or not, to impugn the findings of this independent study. It is the John Jay study that reveals that only a very small minority of Catholic priests have actually been involved in sexual abuse -- totally contrary to the picture being portrayed by a largely secular and anti-Catholic media that is singling out Catholicism for its attacks -- while ignoring substantive similar problems in other areas of society, such as Protestant clergy and public school personnel.