According to the Associated Press, here are some church abuse statistics that should frighten everyone:
Three companies that insure the majority of Protestant churches in America say they typically receive upward of 260 reports each year of people under 18 being sexually abused by clergy, church staff, volunteers or congregation members.
That’s an underestimate, since the denominations aren’t centralized and not every instance is reported.
How does the Catholic Church do in comparison?
The Roman Catholic Church has said there have been 13,000 credible accusations against Catholic clerics since 1950.
If my math is correct (and for the sake of my teaching career, I hope it is), that gives the Catholic Church an average of just over 228 reports of abuse per year. However, we don’t know how many of those accusations are made by minors.
Are the Protestant churches worse than the Catholic Church when it comes to abuse?
I’m curious what the year by year breakdown would be, if the churches are getting better or worse at fixing the abuse problems over time.
These numbers come from the three companies that insure the majority of Protestant churches in America (165,495 of them, to be exact).
Church Mutual Insurance Co. (Merrill, WI) had an average of “100 sex abuse cases a year involving minors over the past decade.”
GuideOne Insurance Co. (West Des Moines, IA) reported around “160 reports of sex abuse against minors every year for two decades.”
Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Co. (Ft. Wayne, IN) said it has received approximately “73 reports of child sex abuse and other sexual misconduct every year for 15 years.” Though this company didn’t specify ages, so we don’t know how many of those abuse scandals involved minors specifically.
It’s tragic any way you put it.
[tags]atheist, atheism, Associated Press, Protestant, Christian, Catholic Church, abuse, scandal, sex, Church Mutual Insurance Co., GuideOne Insurance Co., Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Co.[/tags]