The Costs of Clergy Abuse

Clergy abuse is a difficult topic for me to write about because of my great love for the Church and for the clergy and because I am horrified by the monstrous acts committed against young people by some errant members of the clergy.  Nevertheless, it is an ongoing conversation that must happen so as to protect young people, to purify the Church, to care for the victims of clergy abuse, and learn from the mistakes of the past.  

 
The Catholic Church strongly condemns sexual abuse, especially when committed against minors. Tragically, sexual abuse of minors has been committed by some members of our Church’s clergy including by several high-ranking Church leaders, most notably ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.   Speaking to U.S. Cardinals about the clergy sex abuse scandal on 23 April 2002, Pope St. John Paul II said “The abuse which has caused this crisis is by every standard wrong and rightly considered a crime by society; it is also an appalling sin in the eyes of God.”  The costs of this clergy abuse are staggering to both the individual victims and the Church as a whole.

 
Clergy abuse has caused the Catholic Church massive financial and legal harm.  Last month, the Archdiocese of New York agreed to a $800 million settlement to victims of clergy sexual abuse. In 2024, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to a $880 million settlement.  The Archdiocese of Chicago has paid out over $200 million to victims and the Diocese of San Diego has paid out over $198 million to victims.  (See https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/us/new-york-archdiocese-agrees-to-pay-out-nearly-usd1-billion-to-sexual-abuse-victims  and https://apnews.com/article/clergy-abuse-settlements-list-9b84dca327835de218ce297371b49d3b  

 
Just those three archdioceses and one diocese have paid and/or have agreed to pay $2.078 Billion to victims of clergy sexual abuse in recent years.  To put that in perspective, General Motors’s net income for 2025 was $2.7 billion.

 
The dioceses and eparchies that participated in the most recent U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ annual report "Findings and Recommendations on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People," reported paying out approximately $389.9 million for costs related to sexual abuse allegations between 1 July 2024 and 30 June 2025, which is a 61% increase over the previous reporting period.   See https://www.usccb.org/resources/2025%20CYP%20Annual%20Report%20Digital%20Version.pdf  and https://www.ewtnnews.com/world/us/u-s-bishops-report-shows-slight-rise-in-abuse-claims-as-settlement-amounts-surge-69  

 
It is true that clergy sexual abuse includes heterosexual acts as well as homosexual acts. It is also true that the overwhelming majority of clergy sexual abuse is/was committed by males against young males.  According to The Nature and Scope of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States 1950–2002 report conducted by John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2004 at the direction of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, 81% of victims of clergy sexual abuse between 1950 and 2002 were males. 73% of these victims were under the age of 15 years old.   (See https://dioceseofbrooklyn.org/john-jay-college-reports-on-the-sexual-abuse-of-minors/    and https://www.usccb.org/sites/default/files/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/upload/The-Nature-and-Scope-of-Sexual-Abuse-of-Minors-by-Catholic-Priests-and-Deacons-in-the-United-States-1950-2002.pdf  )

 
The 2025 USCCB report "Findings and Recommendations on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People" reported that 87% of the victims of clergy abuse were males and 77% of the victims were under the age of 15 when the abuse first started.  See https://www.usccb.org/resources/2025%20CYP%20Annual%20Report%20Digital%20Version.pdf  

 
I am not saying that all homosexuals are sexual predators preying on young boys or are potential sexual predators.  As the evidence demonstrates, clergy sexual abuse of minors is overwhelmingly committed by male clergy against other males.  

 
Clergy sexual abuse has caused incalculable reputational harm to the Catholic Church and the clergy in particular.  “Along with the victims and their families, the entire Catholic community in this country has suffered because of this scandal and its consequences,” stated the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in their 2018 revision of  Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.   “The intense public scrutiny of the minority of the ordained who have betrayed their calling has caused the vast majority of faithful priests and deacons to experience enormous vulnerability to being misunderstood in their ministry and often casts over them an undeserved air of suspicion.”  See https://www.usccb.org/resources/Charter-for-the-Protection-of-Children-and-Young-People-2018-final%281%29.pdf  

 
The overwhelming majority of Catholic priests and deacons are faithful and dedicated individuals earnestly serving God, Church, and humanity.  For every clerical abuser, there are dozens more St. John Vianneys awaiting canonization.  And many priests and several bishops have also been wrongfully accused of sexual abuse that never occurred.  The most egregious of these false accusations resulted in the wrongful imprisonment of the late George Cardinal Pell of Australia.  He was later acquitted and released from prison.  

 
We need to pray for our priests, clergy and members of religious orders as the evil one particularly targets them for destruction.  We need to pray for them because as human beings they experience their own personal struggles.  

 
Much more troubling than the monetary, legal and reputational harm of clergy abuse to the Church is the psychological, spiritual, emotional and physical harm to the victims.  The lives of thousands of young people and children have been seriously harmed by sexual acts committed against them by clergy.  Survivors of sexual abuse often experience mental health issues, drug addiction, alcoholism, suicidal thoughts and suicide as a result of being abused.   

 
A 2018 Grand Jury report in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania found that over 300 priests and clergy were accused of sexually abusing over 1,000 children in six of the Commonwealth’s eight dioceses between the 1940s and the early 2000s.  See https://www.attorneygeneral.gov/report/  

 
A 2023 report by the Illinois Attorney General stated that at least 1,997 children claimed to have been sexually abused by Catholic clergy in Illinois between 1950 and 2019.  See https://clergyreport.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/introduction/  

 
In 2023, the Maryland Attorney General released a report that over 600 young people were victims of clergy abuse that occurred in the Archdiocese of Baltimore from the 1940s until 2002. See https://oag.maryland.gov/resources-info/Documents/pdfs/AOB_Report_Revised_Redacted_Interim.pdf  

 
The statistics are both appalling and heartbreaking.  

Many other states have conducted their own investigations in clergy abuse and issued similar reports.  A word of caution when reading these investigatory reports. First, these reports cover many decades of incidents and in most cases, the perpetrator is deceased and the abuse occurred decades ago.  Second, the details about incidents of clergy abuse are graphic and shocking.  Third, state investigations sometimes are conducted with political objectives in mind and their reports sometimes contain factual distortions and misrepresentations and are deliberately inflammatory.  This is especially true for the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report which reporter Peter Steinfels describes as “Inaccurate, Unfair & Misleading.”  See his lengthy analysis of the Pennsylvania report which was published in Commonweal in January 2019 https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/pa-grand-jury-report-not-what-it-seems    

 
There is no denying that many young people were sexually abused by members of the clergy and that the Church took too long to address this evil.  It took the Catholic Church hierarchy far too long to recognize the problem of clergy sex abuse and to take meaningful action to address it and to take care of the victims.

 
Since 2002, the efforts of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and U.S. dioceses and archdioceses to protect young people have produced encouraging results. The USCCB website contains numerous reports and resources related to the protection of young people.  See https://www.usccb.org/committees/protection-children-young-people   

Even the Maryland, Illinois and Pennsylvania reports all show dramatic decreases in claims of sexual abuse against members of the clergy since 2002.

 
We need to look beyond the numbers and see the victims.  Each victim is a brother or sister in Christ who has been spiritually, emotionally, psychologically and sometimes physically harmed by a member of the clergy, whom someone trusted as a leader of the Church.  Each victim is a life that is forever altered and harmed because of the evil action of another individual and the failure of the Church to prevent this from happening or failing to address it properly when it did happen. The harm caused by clergy abuse also extends to the families and loved ones of the abuse victims.  

 
Back in January 2026, Pope Leo XIV spoke of the need to listen to victims of clergy abuse.   “The abuse itself causes a deep wound that may last a lifetime, but often the scandal in the Church arises from the door being closed and victims not being welcomed and closely accompanied by authentic pastors,” he said.  See https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/speeches/2026/january/documents/20260108-concistoro-straordinario.html  

 
On the night that he was betrayed, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, Simon, behold Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed that your own faith may not fail;…” (Luke 22:31-2).   We too pray must pray for our priests and religious and for those who have been harmed by corrupted priests and religious.

 
As a Church, we need to do all we can to protect young people from abuse, support the victims, purify our Church of this evil, support those faithful priests and religious who have been wrongfully accused, and support those who are working to correct the mistakes of the past.

I pray to God for healing for these victims and their families, and for God’s mercy to the Church for failing to properly address the evil of sexual abuse within the Church. Most merciful Father in Heaven, purge our Church of this evil.  In Christ our Lord’s name. Amen.