The publication of the John Jay Institute report into the US Catholic church's child abuse crisis marks probably the last word in scholarly and scientific investigation of the story. Among its many conclusions, one is so obvious that it has hardly been discussed at all: there will be no further large scale scandals in the US. American Catholic clergy are now vanishingly unlikely to abuse children sexually. The same seems true in England and Wales. The crime will never entirely be stamped out but it's difficult to imagine it diminishing further.
The report shows a clear and steady decline in the incidence of reported abuse from about 1980 onwards. We now know of almost 800 allegations for 1980. In 2008 there were 17. It attributes this fall to a mixture of greater awareness of the crime, within and outside the church, along with much better training of candidates for the priesthood (who also tend to be older and more mature than once they were). So: are the facts right? Is the explanation the right one? Might the bad old days return?