It would be interesting to do a comparison of the earlier “Nature & Scope” with this one – there are some changes in how the data is reported. Just one example: compare the Tables 4.4.5 & 4.4.6 (p.76) of the Nature & Scope report to Table 5.7 (p. 112 where the 2 previous tables are collapsed into 1)) of the Causes & Context report. The initial report (N&S) shows the gifts & enticements offered to victims in a raw count and as a percentage of incidents, while in C&C it is broken down into % of male victims & % of female victims. The C&C table makes it look far less of an issue – let’s look at alcohol/drugs – In the N&S the table reads 712 count or 38.8% of 1,834 incidents. In the C&C table, it is now listed as 8.6% of males and 1.2% of females were offered alcohol and/or drugs – not so bad now, is it!

What is more egregious is the missing N&S tables in the C&C report. These are the tables (pp. 73-75) 4.4.1: Alleged Acts of Abuse by Gender; 4.4.3 Threats by Victim’s Gender and 4.4.4 Type of Threats by Victim’s Gender. These tables all discuss the true nature of what these priests did to their victims, 4.4.1 being the one that would truly upset the apple cart in a report that essentially would like to suggest that it really wasn’t all that bad & besides it’s getting better. Clearly, no one needs to be told about oral sex, manual penetration, penile penetration or group or coerced sex Time to do my own blog on the report, I guess, even if it is a year later.

One sees the mighty hand of the Roman Catholic editors in the construction of the C&C.

Just what is the colour of the sky in their world, anyway?