This is a question that has been kicking
around ever since the child sex abuse scandal involving the Catholic
church came to the fore. In around 2010, loads of articles came out,
citing some data, that the priesthood was broadly in line with national averages, some people claimed it was actually worse in Protestant churches/organisations, and many claiming (as a result) that this was not a Catholic problem per se, and that other denominations rate the same.
The reality could be, as Andrew Brown surmised,
that the notoriety of the scandal and public perception might be skewed
because of the institutional cover-up of the Catholic church. Let’s
have a brief look.
