New report indicates era of widespread clerical abuse in US Church is over

A new report into abuse allegations against Catholic clergy in the US sheds light on when the vast majority of abuses occurred, indicating that there is good reason to hope that the number of incidents of abuse are dropping drastically to the point of becoming increasingly rare.

Compiled by the Centre for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), the report released on 15 January also notes that over $5 billion has been paid in costs due to the abuse crisis in the US Catholic Church.

In November 2004, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) commissioned CARA to conduct an annual survey of all of the dioceses and eparchies whose bishops are members of the USCCB.