Would you care to comment on the published reports by the institutions that provide malpractice insurance to Protestant Churches that sexual abuse by and among Protestant clergy is as much as five times more prevalent than among Catholic clergy?
I have to question your allegation! - I can find only six news stories relating to sexual abuse from protestant ministers, while it takes 22 pages to list the Catholic pedophiles alone. Where did you get your info?
On one level, I believe that child abuse is horrific and should be dealt with immediately and harshly wherever it occurs: whether the house of worship be Protestant, RC, Jewish or whatever.
Sins of the flesh and sins of violence -- sexual abuse combines both, at the least -- are a perennial problem whether or not you're RC or Protestant, and I find it as risible to lay the fault for it at Luther's (or the Reformation's) doorstep than it would be to part of some sort of Catholic Conspiracy (those nefarious Jesuits, no doubt...).
As for your 5:1 incidence statistic, I assume that it comes from this AP report in the NYT?
Data Shed Light on Child Sexual Abuse by Protestant Clergy
If your statistic does come this article, then I can see several immediate problems:
First: The article is talking about 260 reports a year of kids under 18 yrs of age being sexually assaulted by "members of the clergy, church staff members, volunteers or congregants." So, obviously the article's title is NOT accurate: more than just Protestant clergy are being identified as the source of complaints. This makes it impossible to arrive at a reasonable comparison with the number the article gives for the RC Church: 13 000 credible accusations against RC clergymen since 1950.
Second: However, for the sake of argument let's assume that the 260 reports/year all fall under the category of "sexual assault by clergyman." Let's see -- it's been 60 years since 1950, so 13 000 accusations over 60 years equals 13 000/60 equals roughly 216 cases per year for the RC Church. So, just as a first approximation (given the numbers in the article) your 5 to 1 figure appears not just highly innacurate, but drawn out of thin air. The ratio is in fact very close to 1:1, and if you factor in the fact that traditionally there have been at least twice as many Protestants as RCs in the US, then I would say the problem of sexual abuse is slightly greater for the RC Church.
Third: There are other problems with this report. BIG problems. As the article I linked to readily admits:
A.) "Brotherhood [Mutual Insurance Company] does not specify which victims are younger than 18, so it is impossible to accurately add that to the total cases." -- Well, that doesn't help us reach an accurate figure, does it?
B.) "The companies did not produce supporting documentation or a way to determine the reports’ credibility." -- This is more and more looking like just hot air by an unnamed AP reporter.
C.) "Reports of abuse do not mean guilt and do not necessarily result in financial awards, the companies said." -- OK, so now we are comparing 13 000 credible accusations against the RC Church with 260/yr (over 60 years that would make 15,600 cases) accusations against Protestant churches which may or may not be credible accusations.
So, in summary the article I linked to is riddled with caveats, and even if we ignore these problems and look at the numbers in the best possible light for the RC Church the ratio is almost 1:1, not 5:1, for cases of sexual abuse by clergy.
If you've got more detailed or accurate stats to prove your 5 to 1 claim, please provide them (with a link). However, as it stands I'd say your statement that "sexual abuse by and among Protestant clergy is as much as five times more prevalent than among Catholic clergy" is just another unsubstantiated statistic that pops up all to often in the Religion threads on FR.
BTW, would you care to comment on the Michael S. Rose book that I made reference to in my last post?
I wouldn't go there if I were you...oops, too late, you did. I like butter and light salt on my popcorn, thank you.