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Protestant sex abuse:
260 cases a year
Claims vs. churches
reported by insurers
By ROSE FRENCH AP
from that.con Online, June 18, 2007
NASHVILLE, Tenn. June 17 — The
three companies that insure the majority of Protestant churches in America say
they typically receive upward of 260 reports each year of young people under 18
being sexually abused by clergy, church staff, volunteers or congregation
members.
The figures released to The Associated Press offer a glimpse into what has long
been an extremely difficult phenomenon to pin down — the frequency of sex abuse
in Protestant congregations.
Religious groups and victims' supporters have been keenly interested in the
figure ever since the Roman Catholic sex abuse crisis hit five years ago.
The church has revealed that there have been 13,000 credible accusations against
Catholic clerics since 1950.
Protestant numbers have been harder to come by and are sketchier because the
denominations are less centralized than the Catholic church; indeed, many
congregations are independent, which makes reporting even more difficult.
Some of the only numbers come from three insurance companies — Church Mutual
Insurance Co., GuideOne Insurance Co. and Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Co.
Together, they insure 165,495 churches and worship centers for liability against
child sex abuse and other sexual misconduct, mostly Protestant congregations but
a few other faiths as well. They also insure more than 5,500 religious
schools, camps and other organizations.
The companies represent a large chunk of all U.S. Protestant churches.
There are about 224,000 in the U.S., according to the Association of
Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, although that number excludes most
historically black denominations and some other groups, which account for
several thousand congregations.
Church Mutual, GuideOne and Brotherhood Mutual each provided statistics on sex
abuse claims to The Associated Press, although they did not produce supporting
documentation or a way to determine whether the reports were credible.
The largest company, Church Mutual, reported an average of about 100 sex abuse
cases a year involving minors over the past decade. GuideOne, which has
about half the clients of Church Mutual, said it has received an average of 160
reports of sex abuse against minors every year for the past two decades.
Brotherhood Mutual said it has received an average of 73 reports of child sex
abuse and other sexual misconduct every year for the past 15 years.
However, Brotherhood does not specify which victims are younger than 18 so it is
impossible to accurately add that to the total cases.
Abuse reports don't always mean the accused was guilty, and they don't
necessarily result in financial awards or settlements, the companies said.
The reports include accusations against clergy, church staff and volunteers.
Even with hundreds of cases a year "that's a very small number. That
probably doesn't even constitute half," said Gary Schoener, director of the
Walk-In Counseling Center in Minneapolis, a consultant on hundreds of Protestant
and Catholic clergy misconduct cases. "Sex abuse in any domain, including
the church, is reported seldom. We know a small amount actually come
forward."
Tom Farr, general counsel and senior vice president of claims for GuideOne,
based in West Des Moines, Iowa, said most abuse cases are resolved privately in
court-ordered mediation. Awards can range from millions of dollars down to
paying for counseling for victims, he said.
One of the largest settlements to date in Protestant churches involved the case
of former Lutheran minister Gerald Patrick Thomas Jr. in Texas, where a jury
several years ago awarded the minister's victims nearly $37 million.
Separate earlier settlements involving Thomas cost an additional $32 million.
When insurance companies first started getting reports of abuse from churches
nearly two decades ago, the cases usually involved abuse that happened many
years earlier. But over the past several years, the alleged abuse is more
recent — which could reflect a greater awareness about reporting abuse,
insurance companies said.
Insurance officials said the number of sex abuse cases has remained steady over
the past two decades, but they also said churches are working harder to prevent
child sex abuse by conducting background checks, installing windows in nurseries
and play areas and requiring at least two adults in a room with a child.
Patrick Moreland, vice president of marketing for Church Mutual, said churches
are particularly susceptible to abusers.
"By their nature, congregations are the most trusting of organizations, so that
makes them attractive targets for predators," he said. "If you're a
predator, where do you go? You go to a congregation that will welcome
you."
A victims' advocacy group has said the Southern Baptists, the nation's largest
Protestant denomination, could do more to prevent abuse by creating a list of
accused clergy the public and churches could access.
"I think they should have a list of credibly reported clergy child abuse," said
Christa Brown, a member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a
group initially created to hold the Catholic church accountable for sex abuse by
its clergy.
"These are things people are entitled to know," said Brown, who says she was
sexually abused as a child by a Southern Baptist minister. "The only way
to prevent this crime is to break the code of silence and to have absolute
transparency when allegations are raised."
At the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting in San Antonio this week,
the Rev. Wade Burleson of Enid, Okla., proposed a feasibility study into
developing a national database of Southern Baptist ministers who have been
"credibly accused of, personally confessed to, or legally been convicted of
sexual harassment or abuse."
A convention committee referred Burleson's motion to the SBC executive
committee, which will report back with findings and a recommendation at next
year's meeting in Indianapolis.
Southern Baptist President Frank Page said leaders are considering several
options to help churches protect children against abuse.
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