Enough Already: The Latest Annual Abuse Report Shows Again Abuse in the Catholic Church Is Long Over

Copy and paste: The 2022 annual abuse report from U.S. bishops

Once again, this year's newly released annual audit report by United States bishops about abuse in the Church merely demonstrates the large volume of patently phony accusations, suspicious and unprovable allegations against dead priests, dubious decades-old claims, and the dogged determination of Church-suing tort lawyers to cash in on their tickets to riches.

It's long time to finally put an end to spitting out these expensive and ridiculous reports every year.

Just the facts, ma'am

Taken straight from the data in this year's audit report, we again provide you the simple facts about the Church abuse story that you will never, ever see in the mainstream media and even in the so-called devout "Catholic" media. In the 2022 audit year:

• 91% of all abuse accusations allege incidents from 1999 or earlier (23 or more years ago);
• over half, 54%, of all identified priests who were accused were already long deceased (and thus no longer around to defend themselves);
• over 84% of all identified priests who were accused were either already dead, already removed from the clerical state, already out of ministry (e.g., retired), or simply missing;
• only a mere 6% (!) of all allegations were even deemed "credible" by the very lenient standards of diocesan review boards, while the rest of the accusations were deemed either "unsubstantiated," "unable to be proven," or still being investigated; and
• 67% of priests accused in 2022 already had a previous accusation against them, which is not surprising, since fraudsters know that accusing a priest who has already been accused before makes it far more likely for them to see a nice cash settlement. Indeed, that's why contingency lawyers really push for public disclosure of accused priests – to gin up more clients and phony claims.

This year's report also had an interesting update revealing that of the 44 current minors who came forward in 2021 alleging that a current priest abused them, only 4 of those allegations were determined to be "substantiated." In other words, nearly 91% of the accusations were bogus. Think about that: 9 in 10 current allegations are bogus.

The Catholic ATM and 'window statutes'

Most in the media have failed to mention – and we believe it is deliberate – that the majority of these stale accusations have come from states such as California and New York that have recently passed "window legislation," laws that lifted the statutes of limitations and allowed any fraudster, flimflammer, or mental case to sue the Church for big bucks no matter how long ago the alleged abuse occurred.

It's thus easy to understand why the Church still sees many lawsuits arising from events long ago. With countless media headlines over the past decades advertising that the Church will readily pay out big cash on bogus claims, and, in some states, no matter how old, why not give it a try? You have big riches to gain and you don't even risk your good name in bringing suit since you can file your suit anonymously. It's all a lawyer's dream.

Over and done

As we have said before, the Church has been releasing these "annual abuse reports" for nearly 20 years now, and the time has finally come to put this yearly media circus to an end. They have far outlasted their usefulness, and they accomplish nothing except provide enemies of the Church free p.r. to gin up more phony claims. Justice says this must stop.

Enough is enough.

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Important note: Some readers are unclear on what the report defines as an "unsubstantiated" allegation. Here it is, straight from the report itself (emphasis added): "'Unsubstantiated' describes an allegation for which an investigation is complete and the allegation has been deemed not credible/false based upon the evidence gathered through the investigation" (p. 26 of the pdf / p. 16 of the report).

In other words, "unsubstantiated" claims are indeed bogus claims.

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Want to learn about the rampancy of false accusations against priests?:
- "False Accusations Against Catholic Priests Are Now At Epic Proportions" (May 2019)
- The book: The Greatest Fraud Never Told: False Accusations, Phony Grand Jury Reports, and the Assault on the Catholic Church by David F. Pierre, Jr. (Amazon.com)