The belief that bishops moved child abusers from parish to parish, allowing them to abuse over and over, may well be one of the greatest myths created by the press coverage of the sexual abuse scandal in the Church. This has become the conventional wisdom of the press, and also of many Catholics. But is it true? Research done in recent years casts doubt on that widely accepted belief.

The most important study of this issue was conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. The researchers acknowledged that because of the bishops' cooperation, the study was based on "an almost unheard of 97 per cent response rate." Commenting on the data, Karen Terry, PhD, and James P. Levine, PhD, the Principal Investigator and the Administrative Coordinator of the Study, stated categorically:

"It is clear that transferring priests with allegations of child sexual abuse was not a general response to the problem, and was limited to a finite number of cases."

Bishops did not generally move abusing clergy around because they were very often not aware of the abuse taking place. In recent years, a torrent of accusations of sexual abuse of minors by clergy has inundated the Church and society. It is natural to assume that Church authorities were aware of all these accusations and that they ignored them. The press certainly tends to affirm that belief. However, it is far from true.

As we acquire a deeper understanding of sexual abuse, we realize that one of its insidious characteristics was that abusers pressured their victims to keep the matter secret. Moreover, victims were often afraid to talk about it, because they were ashamed or were rightly fearful that no one would believe them, and that they themselves would be suspect.

The result was that a majority of abuse remained secret from Church authorities as well as civil authorities. Unfortunately, in much reporting, today's understanding of the problem of sexual abuse is projected back and used to judge incidents of the remote past.

In the very extensive Report to the People of God (2004), the Archdiocese detailed the information it had regarding incidents and reports of sexual abuse by clergy. Because the California Legislature repealed the statute of limitations for the duration of 2003 for suits dealing with sexual abuse of minors, the Church was deluged by a flood of cases, some dating back more than 70 years. The Report noted that although the first allegation of abuse dated to 1931, the first actual reports of abuse did not come until 1967.

The accompanying chart will help to illustrate that the great majority of reports of past sexual abuse have come in recent years. Most of these reported deal with incidents that date back more than 20 years.

Since the mid-1980s especially, when both Church and society began to get a better grasp of the nature of sexual abuse, the Archdiocese has addressed the issue effectively. As a result, the number of reported incidents of abuse since that time has decreased dramatically. Indeed, since the beginning of the 1990s, the Catholic Church has probably been one of the safest places for children in our society. For example, during the 1990s, there are reports of 23 alleged incidents and none for the period 2000-2003.

Patrick J. Schiltz, a law professor at St. Thomas University in Minneapolis who has represented every Christian denomination in over 500 cases all over the country, stated in an article in Commonweal Magazine that, "Over the past decade, clergy sexual abuse has been virtually eradicated from the Roman Catholic Church."

To claim that Church authorities responded to allegations of abuse simply by transferring abusers is generally not true. The repetition of this simplistic and inaccurate claim does not help victims. Those harmed by abuse need healing from the trauma they have suffered. However, for anyone to persuade victims that they were simply pawns in a vast conspiracy and cover-up by Church authorities who cared nothing about their suffering only adds another obstacle for them on their road to healing.