This is 30 per cent higher than the figure commonly cited in media and by academics and activists.

And separate research shows scandal-related consequences like lost membership and diverted giving has cost the Church more than US$2.3 billion annually for 30 years.

Between 1950 and August, 2015, the church has paid out US$3,994,797,060.10, NCR found.

That figure is based on a three-month investigation of data, including a review of more than 7800 articles gleaned from LexisNexis Academic and NCR databases, as well as information from Bishop Accountability.org and from reports from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

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The figure was mentioned by priest psychologist Msgr Stephen Rossetti at a conference on safeguarding children in Ireland last month.

Msgr Rossetti is a professor at The Catholic University of America and a visiting professor at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University.

He told the Catholic News Service that secular organisations and other churches in the United States are coming to the Catholic Church to learn from its policies.

Over time, more than 5.2 million adults and children have gone through the safe environment training in the United States, and more than 3 million priests, lay employees and volunteers have gone through background checks, he said.

Msgr Rossetti told participants at the conference: "Good response policies are important. But the heart of the matter is education — stopping abuse before it occurs."

He noted that victims standing up and telling their stories has been the decisive factor in turning the tide.

He highlighted that in the United States, child abuse rates are dropping throughout society and the Church.

"At the recorded height, the John Jay Study said 4 percent of clergy were involved as perpetrators," the Monsignor said.

"That number has fallen to less than 1 percent. We have turned the corner, but we shall not rest until the number of abused children is zero," he added.

Last year, Pope Francis was quoted by an Italian newspaper as saying that about 2 per cent of Catholic clergy are paedophiles.

The Pope has set up a Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

Dublin Archbishop Eamon Martin, president of the Irish bishops' conference, warned the conference against becoming "safeguarding-weary" or complacent.

He said the legacy of betrayal, trauma and shame that clerical abuse has left in its wake must never been forgotten.

Four Irish bishops have resigned following severe criticism of their failures in relation to handling allegations of abuse.

Sources

• CatholicPhilly
• Reuters
• Image: Columbus Dispatch

Indianapolis Archbishop Joseph Tobin is worried the divisive nature of the nation's politics may be seeping into the US Catholic Church.

At a theological convention on May 30, he expressed concern about the separation of people into ideological camps.

Archbishop Tobin also warned against a trend in the US church to "oversimplify what are really complicated questions in the hope of discovering who to blame".

"At the present moment, this behaviour helps to contribute to the balkanisation of American Catholics into so-called right wing and left wing, or progressive and traditionalist, factions, who point fingers at each other," he said.

"In my opinion, finger pointing does a great harm to religious life because it makes us defensive," Archbishop Tobin continued.

Under such finger pointing, he said, "we feel constantly compelled to defend ourselves against other parties in the Church".

"Such self protection will make us less likely to humbly examine the distance between our ideals and the present moment, which is the point of departure for a life of continuing conversion," the archbishop added.

From 2010 to 2012, Archbishop Tobin, was secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

At the US convention, he gave a frank assessment of the struggles facing the American Church.

He said some US bishops are finding Pope Francis's leadership style difficult to understand.

"What I've seen is how disruptive Pope Francis has been within the hierarchy of the United States," Archbishop Tobin said.

"I was talking to a couple of brother bishops a while back and they were saying that bishops and priests were very discouraged by Pope Francis because he was challenging them."

"I think there was a particular image, perhaps, of what it means to be a pastoral leader in this country, and Francis is disturbing it," he continued.

"I think there is some resistance to a different way of doing the Gospel mission of the Church."

The archbishop, a former superior general of the Redemptorists, paused before continuing with a smile: "So, pray for Francis's health."

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• National Catholic Register
• Image: WDRB.com

The English version of the German magazine, Der Spiegel offers a summary of and explanation for the disarray and confusion at senior levels of the Vatican that have resulted from rivalries, scandals, blunt and even brutal administrative acts, falsification of facts and monumental mismanagement.

Almost daily, the woes of the Vatican are made more extreme by coverage of the scandals of the Church in the United States where one senior cleric has been convicted of "child endangerment" and a bishop will go on trial in September to face a charge of failure to report the sexual abuse of a child. The US bishops' conference has embarked on a high-risk strategy to oppose President Barack Obama over contraception insurance, a subject where a majority of Catholics in the US, especially women, don't share their bishops' passion.

After the failure of his first attempt to overthrow the rule of the in Russia Czars, Lenin asked, "What is to be done?" It's a frequent question when we are faced with failure and a mess.

We can bemoan the misfortune, look for scapegoats, blame anything from evil people through to the Devil (as people in the Vatican have done), start a revolution, just walk away or try a combination of these.

Or we can, with my high school teacher, say that the facts are friendly. It has taken a long time to create the mess and it may well take longer to remedy it. But for everyone's sake, fix it we must.

Here are ten tips that might be considered as ways out of the mess:
Learn to listen: A maxim dating from Patristic times is that the teaching Church is first of all the learning Church. That was one of the great achievements of Vatican 2: the Council fathers heard what the world in its diversity was saying to and about the Church. Preoccupation with the supply side - what I have to tell you - to the exclusion of the concerns and interests of the "consumer" always leads to a breakdown in communication.

Learn other languages: To become part of the Church's leadership, it is necessary to speak Italian and know Canon Law. Without them, not much can get done in the Church as currently governed. But, they greatly narrow the range of possibilities for hearing from fresh thinkers, understanding the cultures and concerns of those outside the inner circle of Vaticanistas, or hinder even knowing that such cultures and concerns exist.

Don't shoot the messenger: At last the Vatican is being forced to realize what every other public institution, government or business knows: that it is impossible to hide bad news and that lamenting the motivations or actions of who expose a crisis is the worst form of crisis management. Rather than trying to hide behind cover-ups that exacerbate the problem, it is necessary to admit problems and be clearly seen as taking the situation and its rectification seriously.

Tensions are natural: There is no escaping the tensions of the world in which we live. Sanity and success come from managing those tensions, threats, risks and uncertainties. People who hold different views offer an opportunity to enrich your own if you are willing to avoid viewing them as enemies to be eliminated.

European culture wars are for Europeans: They aren't for export and don't mean much to people who don't appreciate their genesis or history. There are culture wars elsewhere, but they have a local genesis and can only have local resolutions. People in Asia, Africa and the Americas look at Europeans and wonder what all the fuss is about. The Church's leaders would do well to accept the relativity of cultures, forget the fiction of Europe as a benchmark and work with other cultures as they are rather than as Eurocentric imagination thinks them to be.

Learn from Max Weber: Weber's observations about the connections between increased specialization, complexity, the need for open ways of operating and clear rules for limiting the claims of authority have become more relevant as populations grow, organizations diversify and specialization increases. In light of this, the Church' practice of appointing office holders in its centralized organization on the basis of status rather than competence is a recipe for disaster. To fix it, the Vatican must restructure itself to limit the power of particular parts of the organization to control the whole, specify how the elements of the bureaucracy interact so that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing rather than having things done by one office surprising the others. The Vatican can only work better if there is a commitment to choosing competence over status in making appointments.

Learn from the history: Today's problems in the Church are mostly of Western origin. The history of the last two hundred years in the West has emphasized that if people don't have a say in their destiny, they at least opt out or even overthrow a regime. In many parts of the West, people are walking away from the Church, most especially women who want to make a contribution but are held in check by male hierarchies. To fix it, Church leadership in general and the Vatican in particular need root and branch reform to foster effective participation, including that of women, in decision making at all levels.

Recognize that people have options and are exercising them: Gone are the days of "command and control" as a sustainable management strategy for any organization. Long gone for many Catholics in the West is a religion of rituals, tribal or national bonds and a culture of fear as a motive for submission. The future of faith is in the free choice to accept a persuasive invitation to join a journey. Vatican practice is perceived as more related to the procedures of the Inquisition than to the message of Jesus. To fix it, the operations of Vatican offices need to accept the dismissive attitude of many Catholics to it and recognize how much trust has to be regained.

Become really catholic again: The numbers say it all; there are three Asians, a few Africans, and a sprinkling from the Americas among the top leaders of Vatican offices even though the only places the Church is growing are in Asia and Africa. Within the old world, the exclusion of fresh thinking and discussion of issues that societies are facing - the role of women, the place of homosexuals, the reexamination of moral rules formed when biological knowledge was primitive - have marginalized the Church as a discussion partner not only in society, but even in Catholics' minds. To fix it, the Vatican has to see that real catholicity calls for inclusiveness and a more representative leadership for the Church. This means that the Church is truly Catholic when, for example, dioceses are seen not as branch offices of a centralized multinational but as the authentic local realizations of a universal faith.

Accept that the facts are friendly: God "writes straight with crooked lines." But to appreciate just what God is up to requires a sober acceptance that the lines are crooked. Jesus tried to burst the bubble in which religious leaders of his time were living. He appeared to them to be at least destabilizing and perhaps demonic. But he confidently worked in the real world because in that world God is at work and "Wisdom is proved right by her deeds" (Matt 11:19). In the Incarnation the Son did not enter some perfect realm, but took on the reality of a particular time and place. The Vatican has nothing to lose by doing the same, engaging with the real world, listening to it and learning from it. And it has everything to gain.

Michael Kelly SJ, a frequent writer, publisher and broadcaster who was founding publisher of the Australian Jesuits' Eureka Street Magazine.

First published in CathNews USA. Used with permission.

Sources

• Image: What's On TV

Here are some trends I see in the American Church and how I see the future developing. The first thing is the disintegration of denominationalism. It used to be that the different Protestant groups were distinct in their theology and their style of worship. There were boundaries. You pretty much knew what to expect in a Southern Baptist Church, a Methodist Church, Lutheran, Presbyterian or Episcopal. There were clear distinctions theologically and culturally and historically.

The boundaries are disappearing fast. In all Protestant churches there is a kind of post-modern pick and mix attitude. The old distinctive markers are falling and a new experimental attitude is taking place. So a relative of mine, a young Baptist minister, enthusiastically claims to "read all those guys" meaning that he avidly reads Anglican, Catholic, Baptist, Independent and classical Lutheran and Methodist theologians. He and his generation are also open to all sorts of worship styles. Their attitude is shared by the younger generation of Evangelicals in all denominations. People are no longer Methodist or Presbyterian or Baptist for life and for clear theological reasons. Instead they gravitate to a church that suits them and their lifestyle. Utilitarianism and market forces reign supreme.

The two trends within the Protestant churches seem to be toward free "mega church" type worship which conforms to the trends in society or a reaction against that to move toward "liturgy". So a neighbor who goes to a conservative Presbyterian church likes to tell me how "liturgical" they are. They observe Advent and Lent and Ash Wednesday. They light candles on the "altar" when they "celebrate communion" and every once in a while they have "Choral Evensong." Another friend tells me he goes to a Baptist Church that is "very liturgical."

I predict that the disintegration of denominationalism will continue and that trends within the Catholic Church will converge with what is happening within Protestantism to produce some very interesting and new configurations. Read more

Sources

• Fr Dwight Longenecker's Blog and Podcast
• Image: Fr Longenecker's Bio