From this article
Roman Catholic sex abuse cases at AllExperts :
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"Prof. Philip Jenkins, Professor of History and Religious Studies at Penn State University, published the book Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis in 1996. In it, he stated that between 0.2 and 1.7 percent of Catholic priests are pedophiles or child molesters. His 2002 article "The myth of the 'pedophile priest'"[10] expresses his views. In contrast to Louise Haggett's statement, Professor Jenkins states::'My research of cases over the past 20 years indicates no evidence whatever that Catholic or other celibate clergy are any more likely to be involved in misconduct or abuse than clergy of any other denomination -- or indeed, than nonclergy. However determined news media may be to see this affair as a crisis of celibacy, the charge is just unsupported.'"
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I could find 10 other articles about it. Keep in mind I am agreeing with both of you - the Catholic church is responsible for it's problems. However, the significant scandle is REALLY about the church's collusion to hide the crimes and enable the individual to perpetuate his crime spree. The molestations are awful and especially egregious to those in the faith because of the level of trust one puts in their priest. No one puts that sort of trust in, say, their...plumber.
My point is that the media's reaction to the event has created a false assumption (just think of how many catholic priest jokes you hear in general conversation) that this group of people are statistically more likely to be pedophiles than any other group of people or profession, which is a myth. For those who dislike religion in the first place, it's all too easy to embrace the overexposure as correlating to a statistically higher rate of perps.
The lines get blurred when one hears reports on the crime itself and the subsequent reports on the coverup of said crime - creating an illusion or misunderstanding as to the rate of occurrence of the crime by that group. Indeed, it goes to the difficulty of determining the reality of this issue.