US Catholics paid more than $5 billion for allegations of sexual abuse of minors over 20 years: study

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Monday, January 20, 2025

America arm of the Catholic Church paid greater than $5 billion over 20 years for prices associated to allegations of sexual abuse of minors by clergymen and deacons, in response to a research by the Middle for Utilized Analysis within the Apostolate at Georgetown College in Washington, D.C.

Revealed this month, the 106-page report tracked and calculated the prices associated to allegations of sexual abuse of minors by clergymen and deacons reported by “dioceses, eparchies and non secular communities of males” yearly from 2004 to 2023. 

Researchers discovered that the Catholic Church paid out simply over $5,025,346,893. 

Some 87% of the funds — or greater than $4.3 billion — had been made by dioceses and eparchies, whereas different non secular communities of males linked to the Catholic Church paid the remaining 13%, which amounted to $641,324,609.

“A mixed three-fourths of those funds had been for settlements paid to the victims (71%) and different funds to victims (4%). The opposite main class of prices paid out was attorneys’ charges (17%), which make up one-sixth of all of those prices,” the report notes.

Included in the associated fee for the sexual abuse of minors was additionally the price of defending the alleged offenders, which researchers say was 6% of the associated fee. Whereas insurance coverage corporations lined a few of these prices, the majority of the funds got here from the dioceses, eparchies and non secular communities of males. Simply 16% of the prices associated to the sexual abuse allegations had been paid by insurance coverage corporations.

Simply final September, the Diocese of Rockville Centre in Lengthy Island, New York, the biggest Catholic Diocese within the U.S. to file for chapter, agreed to pay greater than 600 survivors of sexual abuse a historic $320 million and spend money on rigorous little one safety protocols in a authorized settlement.

“The credit score for having saved so many youngsters sooner or later from the horrors inflicted on so many previously goes to the brave survivors for having fought, suffered, endured, and stood sturdy towards darkness and deceit,” Jeff Anderson of Jeff Anderson & Associates instructed The Christian Put up in an announcement on the time.

“Whereas there’s a measure of accountability, the beneficiaries of this are the communities and the youngsters born and but to be who’re safer due to the publicity of the practices by the diocese and the bishops.”

The CARA report means that the publicity of clergy abuse over time seems to have served as a deterrent together with elevated funding in little one safety efforts by the church.

Prices associated to allegations of sexual abuse of minors fell 17% within the second decade of the research in contrast with the primary. The primary decade of allegations value the church over $2.7 million, whereas greater than $2.2 million was paid out within the second. The church additionally spent 80% extra on little one safety efforts within the second decade of the research — over $468.2 million in comparison with the over $259.7 million spent on these efforts within the first decade.

Researchers additionally discovered a 46% improve in allegations deemed credible by dioceses, eparchies and non secular communities of males from the primary decade of the survey (6,621) to the second decade, when 9,655 had been discovered credible from 2014-2023.

“At the very least a few of that is attributable throughout that second decade to the better variety of giant lawsuits and state investigations, in addition to the enactment by some state governments of short-term relaxations of statutes of limitations on crimes and lawsuits,” researchers mentioned.