[Natural Law]

Snarky quips and cartoons to not trump fact. What differentiates the Catholic Church from the Protest denominations on this issue is that the Catholic Church has been open and aggressive is dealing with the problem. Non-Catholic Churches and institutions continue to deny and hide behind confidential settlement agreements and malpractice insurance policy firewalls. Further Store Front Churches and minuscule denominations with no measurable assets do not attract belated claims of abuse.

There have been 15,000 documented allegations against the entire Catholic Church over the last 40 years. The data from the Church indicates that only 40% of those had any merit. The numbers also includes those who claim physical abuse for things such as having Sister Mary-Whatever slap their knuckles.

Granted that 6,000 cases is a terrible number it comes from a population of over 1.5 billion Catholics over the last 40 years. That means that less than 0.0005% of all Catholics were abused. Catholics have a greater probability of getting killed by lightening strikes. In fact your kids are 1000 times more likely to die in an auto accident than be molested by a priest, but I bet you don’t hesitate to load them in the car multiple times each week. Compare that number to any other institution and it is an impressive statistic where fallible humans are involved.

[JoeProBono]

[BlueDragon]

"...What differentiates the Catholic Church from the Protest denominations on this issue is that the Catholic Church has been open and aggressive is dealing with the problem."

Oh, really? What of Cardinal Mahoney's demonstrated secretivness, his shuffling 'round, re-assigning priests which he would have good reason to at the least strongly suspect were guilty, guilty, guilty?

Perhaps it had something to do with this, from Pope slams Irish church, no Vatican blame in abuse

excerpts;

Ireland's main group of clerical-abuse victims, One in Four, said it was deeply disappointed by the letter because it failed to lay blame with the Vatican for what it called a "deliberate policy of the Catholic Church at the highest levels to protect sex offenders, thereby endangering children." "If the church cannot acknowledge this fundamental truth, it is still in denial," the group said.
[snip]

While a cardinal at the Vatican, Joseph Ratzinger penned a letter instructing bishops around the world to report all cases of abuse to his office and keep them secret under threat of excommunication. Irish bishops have said the letter was widely understood to mean they shouldn't report the cases to police.

Open and aggressive in dealing with it? HA! only after they were forced to. They had to be dragged to it! Otherwise, it's very likely it would all be continued to be swept under the rug. Like the good 'ol days...