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The rate of accusation - the rate at which victims, whether genuine or not, accused clergy of sexual abuse - was THREE TIMES that for Catholic priests. That may be the cause of a rate of conviction and imprisonment TWICE that of Catholic priests, since there were so many more allegations of abuse.

How did I miss the point? You, once again, prove my point. Bishops were shielding the miscreants, hiding them, moving them around, and threatening some parents of victims with prosecution themselves, while paying hush money to others.

No one accused the Catholic priests, because as the priests themselves told their victims "No one will believe you."

Only now are the allegations surfacing, and the bulk of them are true, given that over 350 priests were dismissed from service, last year alone.

Ever heard of statutes of limitations? If these didn't exist, there would likely be 1000 additional Catholic priests in prison.

Your last response is still based upon innuendo and conjecture.

To say that 350 priests were discharged last year alone, and that the scandal is mounting, is not enough to condemn the entire ecclesial body.

350 priests is not even 1% of the total in pastoral service in the U.S. If you extrapolate from those 350 (a number I will confirm, in any case) to an assumption that the majority of priests are guilty of the same thing, and you do so with no other data, that is prejudicial and unwarranted.

I won't disagree that many bishops have done grave harm to individuals and the Church. But at the same time please recall that Abp. Law, perhaps the most visible of offenders, was merely following in most cases the advice of psychiatrists treating offenders in the Boston Archdiocese. I will also admit that preventing scandal at great cost to victims is not right, but it is also not accurate to protray most of what happened as unthinking or deliberate. In Boston in particular, medical advice prompted returning offenders to pastoral service.

What if this had happened to any but the Catholic Church? Well, it has, and in greater frequncy. Those stories did not become big because those churches did not have the power or wealth of the Catholic Church.

Promoting the stories of Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, and myriad of sectarian ministers charged with the same sins and crimes won't sell papers or damage public morality nearly to the extent that sensationalizing a Catholic Church scandal may. You have been led to believe that the problem is far greater than outside, objective data has so far revealed. Can harboring that angry belief help anyone?

In any case, know God, know peace.