10 Myths about Priestly Pedophilia.

The media, egged on by a small group of dissenting Catholics, have been having a field day over the tragedy of priests involved in sexual abuse. And the reporting has been littered with falsehoods and outright fabrications. So CRISIS has put together a list of the ten most common false media claims — along with their fact-filled responses to them.

Catholic priests are more likely to be pedophiles than other groups of men. This is just plain false. There's absolutely no evidence that priests are more likely to abuse children than are other groups of men. The use and abuse of children as objects for the sexual gratification of adults is epidemic in all classes, professions, religions, and ethnic communities across the globe, as figures on child pornography, incest, and child prostitution make abundantly clear. Pedophilia (the sexual abuse of a prepubescent child) among priests is extremely rare, affecting only 0.3% of the entire population of clergy. This figure, cited in the book Pedophiles and Priests by non-Catholic scholar, Philip Jenkins, is from the most comprehensive study to date, which found that only one out of 2,252 priests considered over a thirty-year period was afflicted with pedophilia. In the recent Boston scandal, only four of the more than eighty priests labeled by the media as "pedophiles" are actually guilty of molesting young children.