While the Church in Europe is being hit by a wave of sex abuse allegations and investigations, similar complaints in the US are tapering off.
The number of abuse victims, allegations and offending clergy in the United States dropped in 2009 to the lowest figures since data started being collected in 2004, said an Associated Press report in the New York Times.
The New York Times report quoted the latest annual report from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which said the financial burden to the church has fallen too. Dioceses and their insurers paid US$104 million in settlements, attorneys' fees and other abuse-related costs in 2009, down from US$376 million in 2008.
The report identifies 398 allegations of abuse involving clergy from Catholic dioceses in 2009, which is a 36 percent decline from 2008. Most cases involved preteen or teen males and incidents that were decades old, in keeping with past patterns.
The number of offenders dropped 32 percent, to 286. Of the allegations reported in 2009, six involved children under the age of 18 in 2009.
Meanwhile, Britain's Times Online reported that The Vatican is investigating 14 cases of alleged child sex abuse committed within the Spanish Catholic Church between 2001 and 2010.
Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the promoter of justice in the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said Spain was one of the countries with the "lowest number of alleged abuse investigations" and said no convictions had been made.
David Clohessy, national director of US abuse victims group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), however, has predicted a ripple effect from the rash of new allegations of abuse and cover-up in Ireland, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy and Pope Benedict's native Germany.
"Many victims, like Catholics, desperately want to believe the abuses and cover-ups are less pervasive and reform is actually happening," he said. "When confronted with evidence that's not so, I predict more victims will come forward next year."
FULL STORY
Report: Catholic Clergy Abuse Claims Drop in US (New York Times)
Vatican investigating 14 sex abuse cases in Spain (Times.co.uk)