Thanks for your editorial “The Abuse Crisis,” (Jan. 20-26). If we can believe the six o'clock news, there has been an epidemic of sexual abuse by many of the clergy. It is only fair and accurate to state that the problem is hardly confined to the Catholic community.
The book, Pedophiles and Priests by Philip Jenkins — a veteran Penn State historian — has this to say: “In reality Catholic clergy are not necessarily represented in the sexual abuse phenomenon at a rate higher than or even equal to their numbers in the clerical profession as a whole. The biggest difference between the Catholic and Protestant clergy in relation to this problem is due mostly to reporting procedures ... thence it is often difficult to make comparisons between the clergy of the two religions.
Notwithstanding the difficulties that such data comparisons hold, the available information on clergy sexual misconduct shows that the problem is bigger among Protestant clergy. For example, the most cited survey of sexual problems among the Protestants clergy shows that 10% have been involved in sexual misconduct and about 2% or 3% are pedophiles.
With regard to the pedophile problem, the figure for the Catholic clergy, drawn from the most authoritative studies, ranges between .2 percent to 1.1 percent. Yet we hear precious little about these comparative statistics.
JEROME SCHNEIDER
Jasper, Indiana