NCR research: Costs of sex abuse crisis to US church underestimated

Link provided by Edd Doerr

A three-month investigation of data by National Catholic Reporter (NCR) , including a review of more than 7,800 articles gleaned from LexisNexis Academic and NCR databases, as well as information from BishopAccountability.org and from reports from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops concludes that:

"The U.S. Catholic church has incurred nearly $4 billion in costs related to the priest sex abuse crisis during the past 65 years, according to an extensive NCR investigation of media reports, databases and church documents.

In addition, separate research recently published calculates that other scandal-related consequences such as lost membership and diverted giving has cost the church more than $2.3 billion annually for the past 30 years."

Edd notes that " NCR is the leading liberal Catholic newspaper in the US. NCR has published a number of my letters over the years. Let’s note also that Catholics tend to be more liberal than Protestants and that most Catholics are out of sync with the Vatican on many issues, such as contraception, abortion, marriage, divorce, clerical celibacy, ordaining women, and  the necessity to send kids to church schools. "

See NCR research: Costs of sex abuse crisis to US church underestimated for details.