Most studies indicate that approximately two percent of Catholic clergy have been found guilty of sexual misconduct with minors, a percentage nearly identical to that found in the general population.
If Bishop Tobin is comforted by this fact, then the Catholic Church is in deeper trouble than I feared. By his logic, the ranks of Catholic Priests should include the same number of rapists, murderers, junkies, etc. as the general population... Aren't priest called to a higher moral standard? Shouldn't they be held to a higher moral standard than the "general population"? I pray we do.
They should be, of course, and if you read Goodbye! Good Men, you will see that too many of our bishops have been woefully derelict.
But I think comparisons to the general population can be misleading -- it's not an even distribution: those who want to prey on the young are drawn to areas where the young are -- clergy, social workers, teachers, youth workers. Even the Boy Scouts, in spite of their strict policies, occasionally have molestation suits filed against them. I would be willing to wager that the incidence of pedophilia and ephebophilia is small to the point of vanishing among, say, bond traders -- not that they are more virtuous overall than the "general population," just that the field will attract those more interested in money than in molestation.