Church records

He complained that I offered only media reports and insurance data.

“The greater number of sex abuse victims and abusers never come to public attention via either set of data,” he said. “Church records” are where the greatest number of priest abusers can be found, he insisted.

“I could not possibly agree more,” I answered. “The greater number of sex abuse victims and abusers never come to public attention” via media reports or insurance data. “But among Baptists, there are no church records being kept and so the possibility of data via church records simply doesn't exist.”

So ended still another dialogue with a person trying to persuade me that the problem of clergy sex abuse could not possibly be as prevalent among Protestants as among Catholics.

“Church records.”

That’s always the trump card for those who make this argument to me.

I point to the data gathered by the Associated Press from the companies that insure the major Protestant groups. It’s data that shows, over a 10 to 20 year period, a consistent average of 260 sex abuse reports per year involving Protestant clergy and staff. Baptists are the largest of the Protestant groups reported in that data.

This 260 per year average for Protestants “is a higher number than the annual average of 228 ‘credible accusations’ brought against Catholic clerics.”

Though this 260 to 228 comparison is far from perfect, it does raise some troubling questions. As a FOX News commentator noted: In the Catholic context, the 228 per year number “includes all ‘credible accusations,’ not just those that have involved insurance companies, and still is less than the number of Protestant cases.”

By the same token, I can’t help but wonder if the 260 per year number would be even greater if the largest Protestant denomination -- the Southern Baptists -- would bother to assess ‘credible accusations’ in the way Catholics do. As it is, the only numbers that get reported for Baptists are cases that are likely on the verge of a lawsuit . . . and yet the Protestant number is still bigger.

The 228 per year Catholic number derives from a study that the Catholic Church commissioned from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. It was a study that mined the Catholic Church’s own records and that looked at clergy abuse reports through 2002.

But more current “church records” show that the numbers are even higher, I’m told.

There it is again -- the trump card. Catholics have “church records” because Catholic canon law requires record-keeping.

But “church records” stacked up against “no church records” doesn’t equal bigger numbers.

It means nothing more than that one group kept records and the other didn’t.

Personally, I don’t understand why some people seem so intent on persuading me that Catholic clergy are “the worst.” I don’t believe it, but more importantly, I haven’t seen any data to support that conclusion.

I also think it’s a dangerous conclusion. It puts “clergy sex abuse” in a deceptively little box and lulls Protestants into thinking it’s something that only affects “others.” It allows too many Protestant faith leaders to sit back thinking “Bad Catholics” when in reality they need to be looking at themselves and cleaning out their own ranks.

Because make no mistake about it . . . clergy sex abuse is a scourge that knows no bounds of theology or denomination. Regardless of who may have a bigger number, clergy sex abuse is a serious problem for all faith groups.

I yearn for the day when I can answer one of these “Catholics have the most” arguments by saying: “You’re right -- Catholic church records show a higher percentage of clergy child molesters than Baptist church records.”

If I could say that, it would mean that Baptist leaders finally cared enough to at least start keeping records on clergy sex abuse. And that alone would be a huge step forward in Baptistland.