One third of accusations of sexual abuse against Boston priests were false

David Pierre, who recently published Double Standard: Abuse Scandals and the Attack on the Catholic Church and Catholic Priests Falsely Accused: The Facts, the Fraud, the Stories, sat down for an interview with Catholic World Report that is well worth your reading.

Here are a few excerpts from the interview that are particularly good:

Indeed, the inordinate amount of media coverage has enabled the Church to shine a light on the “filth” (the term of Pope Benedict) that infected it and rid itself of an atrocious problem. The harm to victims has been immeasurable, and we must not forget this.On the other hand, Catholics are justified in being upset with the media’s coverage of this narrative.

and

The most obvious example of this double standard is with the public school system. Even the education establishment has acknowledged that it has a serious problem in dealing with child molesters. Education Week, the leading education periodical, has reported that the practice of “passing the trash”—quietly shuffling an accused molester from one school to another—is “no secret” in education circles.

and

Indeed, there is a double standard. Recently there have been a number of alarming news reports indicating that the Hollywood community has a very serious child abuse problem on its hands. Veteran actor Corey Feldman recently proclaimed, “The number-one problem in Hollywood is pedophilia.”Well, where are the breathless cries in the media for accountability? Where is the outrage over“cover-ups”? Where are the angry demands that Hollywood studios install tougher screening policies? Where are the ultimatums that studios implement “abuse review boards”?

and

Another section of that report chronicled an early 1990s study that revealed that zero of 225 cases of teacher sex abuse in New York were reported to police. Two hundred and twenty-five abusers. None of them reported to police. By all measures, this would be defined as a cover-up. Yet the media has never seemed too motivated to follow up on this.

Be sure to read the entire interview.