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Sexual abuse scandals

Main article: Roman Catholic sex abuse cases

In 2002, allegations of priests sexually abusing children were widely reported in the news media. It was clear that the Church was aware of some of the abusive priests, and shuffled them from congregation to congregation (sometimes after psychotherapy), in some cases without removing them from contact with children. It is estimated that up to 3% of American priests were involved since 1965, about 30 per year.There are at least 4,300 criminals incarcerated for sex crimes against children each year.

Background

In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as a mental disorder. This was not universally well received by the public then or even today. Until this time, and probably well after, the Church tried to "cure" what appeared to them to be either a mental disorder or a character defect.

Statutory rape, a felony to which molesting of teens is related, was poorly enforced in the 1970s and still is today.

Conviction of sexual offences where both parties are consenting are rare. Few bishops were in a position to accuse one of their own of a crime, and even in a poorer position to prove it. The likely outcome, as it is with teacher molesting, is the accused goes free and gets a job elsewhere, usually for lack of evidence or credible testimony. In one study where sufficient statitics are available 1% of accused teachers were punished.

Some cases, however, were egregrious. These cases led to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law from the Boston archdiocese.

Victims of such abuse filed lawsuits against a number of dioceses, resulting in multi-million dollar settlements in some cases. Similar allegations of abuse in Ireland led to the publication of the Ferns report in 2005, which stated that appropriate action was not taken in response to the allegations. The church agrees that molesting is a moral and legal crime. Nevertheless, despite these payouts, the scientific community is doubtful about the amount of actual psychological harm done to a consenting teen by a molester.

Some critics have charged that the Church's doctrine of mandatory celibacy for priests has been a major contributing factor to the problem; in response, the Vatican focused on the issue of homosexuality within the clergy.