If wishing that clergy sexual abuse of children and adolescents in the Catholic Church would disappear were sufficient, it would be long gone. But it has not and is not going away.

Last year, bishops reported there were more than 4,000 abusive priests and more than 10,000 abused adolescents and children – numbers bishops themselves considered low.

The bishops had hoped that the number of abusive priests would only be two percent of the clergy – since many consider that is about the percentage of abusers in the general population – but that was not so.

The bishops’ own figures forced them to acknowledge that the 4,000 abusers equaled more than four percent of the clergy.

How would we, as a public, respond if four percent of all grammar, middle and high school teachers sexually abused the students in their charge? Or what if four percent of the police sexually abused minors?

This would be a major crisis, and major calls for reform would be made.

Yet the bishops did know and kept it under wraps, until courageous men, women and adolescents abused as children exposed their personal and embarrassing secrets, so the matter could be hid no longer.

The Rev. Thomas Doyle, O.P., who had a doctorate in canon law, was delegated by the bishops in 1990 to examine the problem on a nation wide level.

The conclusion of his study was that the problem was pervasive throughout the American Catholic Church. For this courageous report that he prepared, he was sent to be a military chaplain outside the United States, and his report was suppressed even from the National Conference of Bishops.

He is suppressed no more and spoke at Loyola last year.

Surely our priests must have known about such a pervasive problem. Sadly, and almost unbelievably, “no.”

The acts were in secret, and the victims felt isolated, embarrassed and fearful of putting their word against a respected priest’s word. Also, I presume, the priests did not confess their hypocritical sins.

The bishops did know, largely because of reports from parents and some victims. They kept the reports under lock and key, as required by Rome, and the law did not make them obligatory reporters until now.

I was a Jesuit seminarian for 10 years, a priest for 10 years, and knew nothing about a cover-up.

I can recall two incidents as a seminarian. One seminarian came on sexually to another, and he was gone in a week, as soon as dismissal papers from Rome arrived. A few years later, while I was still a seminarian, one seminarian in my class tried to force a kiss on a girl who lived near the seminary, and he also was gone in a week.

I, and I am sure others, thought that that was the rule and the practice. Obviously and sadly, that was not the case.

The bishops who knew did not take effective action.

They value and guard their individual independence and their authority over priests and laity.

Yet, after some disagreement among themselves, bishops have again called for an audit of abusers and abused in each diocese and religious order to be made by a lay committee through the secular John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

A few bishops think it beneath them to give a report to a lay group, but about 97 percent of the bishops are cooperating.

But where do the 96 percent of innocent and faithful priests go to get their own reputations back?

This scandal will not soon go away. As you may know, Loyola itself was not immune from the fallout. Former president Bernard Knoth, S.J., was forced to resign because of credible allegations. He denied the allegations, but on his own has taken leave from the Jesuits, which would not have been necessary. He cannot say Mass publicly, but can say Mass privately.

A Southern Province priest, who also has been accused of sexual misconduct with a minor, acknowledged that he did what was alleged, resigned from his position and now lives at a priest retirement community, where he says Mass and assists in other capacities.

But, as with all priests against whom there are credible accusations, he cannot say public Mass, or identify himself as a priest outside of the retirement community.

~ Vernon Gregson, Ph.D., J.D., is a professor of religious studies.