Survey: Alleged abuse of minors has cost U.S. Church $5 billion over 20 years

CNA Staff, Jan 16, 2025 / 12:10 pm

Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) revealed in landmark survey results released this week that “dioceses, eparchies, and religious communities of men” have reported $5,025,346,893 in payouts related to minor abuse allegations since 2004.

Those payments include “settlements paid to victims, other payments to victims, support for offenders, [and] attorneys’ fees” as well as other costs, CARA said.

Though that massive sum has been paid out over the last two decades, the vast majority of the alleged abuse occurred much earlier, with 80% of the alleged crimes taking place in the 1980s or decades prior.

The findings come from two decades’ worth of annual surveys by CARA. The yearly survey collects “information about the allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests and deacons that had been reported to the dioceses and eparchies each year.”

The original survey was first commissioned in 2004 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

The survey has polled about 200 dioceses and eparchies and approximately 220 religious communities of men over the course of the 20 years. Respondents in the survey were asked to categorize abuse allegations as “credible” or “unsubstantiated/obviously false” as well as “unable to be proven.”

Since 2004 respondents have labeled 16,276 allegations as “credible.” The majority of credible allegations were reported by dioceses and eparchies.

The survey noted that the number of credible allegations jumped by 46% in its second decade, which CARA said was attributable in part to “the greater number of large lawsuits and state investigations as well as the enactment by some state governments of temporary relaxations of statutes of limitations on crimes and lawsuits.”

The findings indicate that alleged abuse dropped sharply in the U.S. Church over the course of the 20th century into the 21st. “More than 9 in 10 of all credible allegations” were said to have occurred or began in 1989 or earlier, CARA said. Just 3% of the allegations were said to have taken place since 2000.

Eighty percent of alleged abuse victims were male, more than half were ages 10 to 14, and 20% were aged 9 or younger.

All told, the allegations involve a total of 4,490 alleged perpetrators, 95% of whom are priests and 4% of whom are religious brothers. An additional 1% of alleged abusers are deacons. 

A full 86% of all alleged perpetrators were identified as “deceased, already removed from ministry, already laicized, or missing” in the survey.

Dioceses spend hundreds of millions on abuse prevention efforts

While dioceses paid out billions of dollars in responding to alleged abuse victims, Church officials have also outlayed huge sums to prevent further abuse over the past 20 years.

Respondents to CARA’s survey have reported a total of $727,994,390 in expenditures for child abuse prevention and safety, an average of about $36,000,000 annually.

Those expenditures include “safe environment coordinator and victim assistance coordinator salaries, tracking and other administrative expenses, training programs for adults and children, and background checks.”

The amount of money spent on abuse prevention has increased in recent years. In the first decade of the survey, dioceses reported $259,771,061 in safe environment expenditures; that figure jumped 80% in the second decade that the survey was taken, to $468,223,329. 

In announcing the findings, CARA said the U.S. Church’s “effort to address the sexual abuse of minors by clergy and religious brothers and to implement safeguards to prevent future abuse is unprecedented by any nongovernmental organization and is the largest effort of its kind.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops first promulgated norms for addressing the sexual abuse of minors in the Church in 2002.

In its “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” the bishops’ body acknowledged that clergy sex abuse, as well as “the ways in which these crimes and sins were addressed,” have caused “enormous pain, anger, and confusion for victims, their families, and the entire Church.”

“As bishops, we have acknowledged our mistakes and our roles in that suffering, and we apologize and take responsibility again for too often failing victims and the Catholic people in the past,” the bishops wrote.