Church Abuse Report Authors Defend Findings as Critics Weigh In

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/us/19bishops.html

WASHINGTON — The criminologists hired by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to study the sexual abuse crisis in the church defended their findings on Wednesday at the bishops’ headquarters — in particular their thesis that the abuse peaked in the 1960s and 1970s and dropped off significantly by the mid-1980s.

Sexual abuse victims and experts in the field began to absorb and criticize what is thought to be the most extensive study ever conducted of child sexual abuse within an institution, produced after five years by researchers from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York.

Karen Terry, the report’s principal investigator and the dean of research and strategic partnerships at John Jay, said Wednesday at a news conference: “The peak of this abuse crisis is historical. That peak is over.”

The report’s conclusion was counterintuitive to many Catholics and abuse victims, because the scandal itself did not peak until 2002 with the revelations that the archbishop of Boston had knowingly reassigned serial abusers to serve in ministries where they continued to have access to young people.