‘Survey shows few erring priests’

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said the latest results of a survey, which showed nine out 10 Filipinos polled maintaining that priests in their respective localities "never" take sexual advantage of children and "never" have a mistress, were a strong indication that there were very few erring Church men.

Monsignor Hernando Coronel, CBCP secretary general and spokesman, said over the weekend the results of a survey by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) "were good news" to the Catholic Church.

Coronel said they had been waiting for an independent organization that would conduct an objective assessment on the situation of Filipino priests in the wake of sex scandals that have been rocking the Catholic Church. He said the SWS was "a credible organization."

Coronel said a CBCP-sponsored survey might be misconstrued as "subjective" or biased.

Coronel lamented that several erring priests had received so much media attention, noting that in the case of the 12 apostles, it was only Judas who betrayed Jesus Christ.

He repeated the Catholic Church’s apologies to the victims of sexual abuse committed by priests. "We ask forgiveness for those who behaved immorally."

The SWS survey said one percent of the respondents to a poll answered that priests in their localities "often" take sexual advantage of youth, while two percent said priests in their area "often" have mistresses. The remaining 97 percent said such sexual misbehavior happens "rarely" in their areas.

The SWS survey polled 1,200 statistically representative households from May 17 to June 3, 2002 for an error margin of plus or minus 3 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.

In a statement about the survey, the SWS said the proportion of Filipinos favoring Catholic church priests to get married has grown slightly to one out of every four, compared to one out of five in 1996.

"Filipinos are the most conservative Catholics in the world, on the matter of allowing marriage for priests," the statement said.

Both Catholic and non-Catholic Filipinos believe that an erring priest involved in a sexual abuse of youth should be immediately expelled and not given a second chance, the survey said.