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The numbers come from:

Philip Jenkins (note: a non-Catholic writer) Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis
Associated Press reports (among the most anti-Catholic sites) reported that 250 priests had been dismissed or had resigned by 2008. They didn't make it clear if these had been due to abuse (or loss of vocation etc), but even if we take all 250 were for abuse, that's 0.53% of the 47,000 priests currently serving in America.
The largest numbers (if not the vast majority) of cases of abuse were in the liberal hell-holes of Philly and Chicago, and even if you check them, you will find that in Chicago, ut of the 2,252 priests who had served from 1951 to 1991, allegations of sexual abuse had been made against 59 of them, or 2.6 percent. Note -- allegations
Philly had 1.7% of priests convicted as abusers -- both these numbers are from Philip Jenkins book.
Now, I agree with you, 1.7% is TOO DA*N high, heck, even 0.017 is too high. however, those are the highest numbers in the US meaning the other dioceses are correspondingly closer to zero
Let's not dismiss the fact that there were abusers and they are and were scum who deserve their damnation to the hottest fires of hell (reserved for shepherds who abuse their flock) however, let's not malign the other 98-99% of good priests who are doing their humble duties

Not wanting to rain on our non-Catholic brethern, but remember that Insurance companies that cover non-Catholic churches say that collectively they handle about 260 cases every year. that's nearly the same number of cases that have been ever been filed against the Catholic Church. however, I repeat -- our priests should be held to higher standards than non-Catholic pastors BUT, why is this not reported that your children are less likely to be abused in a Catholic context than in another? 1. Because the Catholic context MUST be holier (and I agree) and 2. Because it makes good news for the media outlets to continue their wholescale attack on everything that is Christian. If they get the big-daddy down, they believe that it will be easy to take potshots at the smaller groups.

If they get the big-daddy down, they believe that it will be easy to take potshots at the smaller groups

Which is why I point out this thread

Pro-homosexuality foundation pours millions into Catholic and mainline Protestant dissident groups
At CatholicVote.org, Thomas Peters recently wrote about the effort by homosexual billionaires to change the Roman Catholic Church’s position on homosexuality by funding dissident groups within the church. Peters catalogs funding to the tune of almost $600,000 to various Catholic groups through something called the Arcus Foundation.
After reading Peters’ article, I went to the Arcus website and discovered that it isn’t just Roman Catholic groups this foundation is funding. Money is also going to many dissident groups in mainline Protestant denominations.

These guys are systematically attacking every Christian group. They won in the ECUSA, are trying hard in the ELCA and PCUSA and UM and shot their load in the Catholic Church. They will come for the rest of us and pick us off one by one unless we put up a united front. Yes, we all have disagreements, some minor, some serious, but we need to see the common enemy -- the secular left who hate Christianity as the main obstacle in their path -- this goes for all of us. If tomorrow there is an ELCA parish that needs picketeers against the gays trying to take over, there should be Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists etc. marching along side. If tomorrow there is a gay crowd screaming outside the Catholic Church, we should all be standing together against these haters

Ditto for those attempting to debase Methodists, Baptist, Pentecostals etc.

So where are these percentages coming from? Are they from an exhaustive set, scientific poll or investigation of the whole church......or are those off the top of someone’s head, a good guess-timate?

The John Jay Study (see threads here, here, and outside coverage here) - commissioned by the U.S. Catholic Bishops' National Review Board itself - found that the number of accused Catholic priest abusers equaled four percent of the entire Catholic priest population. The John Jay study's findings are more than conclusive - they're exhaustive of the entire US population of Catholic priests.

But the real scandal was never about the 4% accused of abuse within their ranks. The real scandal was that 66% of bishops covered for the 4%, negatively affecting 95% of the dioceses in the United States - actions which cost the Catholic Church over three billion dollars paid in settlements and awards to the victims.

[Faithful Departed author Philip Lawler] points out that while less than five percent of American priests have been accused of sexual abuse, some two-thirds of our bishops were apparently complicit in cover-ups. The real scandal isn't the sick excesses of a few dozen pedophiles, or even the hundreds of priests who had affairs with teenage boys -- the bulk of abuse cases. No, according to Lawler, it is the malfeasance of wealthy, powerful, and evidently worldly men who fill the thrones -- but not the shoes -- of the apostles. In case after case, we read in their correspondence, in the records of their soulless, bureaucratic responses to victims of psychic torture and spiritual betrayal, these bishops' prime concern was to save the infrastructure, the bricks and mortar and mortgages. Ironically, their lack of a supernatural concern for souls is precisely what cost them so much money in the end.
-- from the thread Kneeling Before the World
"The Dublin Archdiocese's preoccupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid-1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the church and the preservation of its assets," said the report. "All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities. The archdiocese did not implement its own canon law rules and did its best to avoid any application of the law of the state"....
-- from the thread Pope calls Irish church leaders to Vatican to discuss abuse report