Nearly 4,500 Catholic priests allegedly sexually abused thousands of children and teens from 1950 to 2002 - 4% of all 110,000 U.S. priests in "active ministry," CNN reported Monday.
The TV news network says a draft of an upcoming national abuse study - the first based on the church's own documents - found 6,700 substantiated allegations against priests in the past half-century.
The final report, set for release Feb. 27, is being written by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, which the church asked to survey the nation's 195 Roman Catholic and Eastern Rite dioceses. The study was commissioned to determine the scope of the scandal that has rocked the church for two years. It examined all allegations against priests, characteristics of victims and underlying causes.
Spokesmen for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Review Board established by the bishops declined to either confirm or dispute the statistics.
James Levine, dean of the John Jay College and head of the study team, said, "Whatever CNN found was not anywhere near the final report, which is not finished yet."
David Clohessy, head of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said he was "not shocked but certainly very sad," about the large numbers in the CNN report.
CNN reporter Jason Carroll said Monday that during the weekend he "reviewed the majority" of a 166-page draft stamped "highly confidential." Among highlights:
• 4,450 priests faced allegations of abusing minors from 1950 to 2002.
• About 55% faced one allegation; 147 priests had 10 or more and accounted for 3,000 victims. An additional 13% had four to nine allegations, and 25.5% had two to three allegations. CNN did not account for all of the priests.
• 78% of victims were ages 11 to 17; 16% were ages 8 to 10; and 6% were age 7 and younger.
• Of 11,000 allegations against priests, 6,700 were substantiated by the church and 1,000 were "unsubstantiated in church documents," according to the draft Carroll reviewed. It said 3,300 allegations were not investigated because the allegedly abusive priest had died.
CNN said the draft also cited underlying factors in the scandal, including failure to grasp its gravity, overemphasis on avoidance of scandal, use of unqualified treatment centers, misguided willingness to forgive and insufficient accountability.
Carroll said his source told him the final version of the report may have changes in language or minor corrections in statistics.
Monsignor Francis Maniscalco, spokesman for the bishops' group, and William Burleigh, a member of the review board, both said they haven't seen the study, which Burleigh said is "still in fragments."
Clohessy said the statistic of 11,000 allegations was "extraordinarily low and suggests to us that there are still literally thousands of wounded adults carrying the pain of these secrets."
And every priest with more than one allegation against him - nearly half of the total - represents "thousands of victimized kids who could have been spared" because church officials failed to act on the first complaints, he said.
Victims' advocates and lay activists are unhappy because the study will not break out the statistics for each diocese and can't be used to hold individual bishops accountable for mismanaging priests and failing to protect children.