In his Easter letter the Pope appeared to put the blame for clerical sexual abuse on individual priests rather than on the church, writes Paddy Agnew in Rome
In his 1995 book, Sex, Priests and Power, American psychotherapist and former Catholic priest Richard Sipe estimates that only 50 per cent of US Catholic priests respect their vows of celibacy. 20 per cent are in relationships with women, 8 per cent are experimenting sexually, whilst 30 per cent have a homosexual orientation.
The figures, like all figures, are open to dispute. Significantly, however, Prof Margaret Miles, theology professor at Harvard Divinity School, suggests Sipe's figures may be "conservative estimates".
What is certain is that the Catholic Church is facing a profound crisis, prompted by a seeming tidal wave of sexual abuse scandals in the US and elsewhere, which has again put the spotlight on untouchable issues such as priestly celibacy, the all-male priesthood and clerical authority itself.
The last two weeks have seen the good name of the church reeling against the ropes as sex scandal after scandal has hit it, undermining both its credibility and moral authority. Just take a quick look at an ad-hoc list of the last 10 days.
On Holy Thursday the Pope announced the resignation of the Archbishop of Poznan, Poland, Juliusz Paetz, accused of sexual harassment of young seminarians. Last week a county prosecutor issued a subpoena to Bishop Kevin Britt of the Archdiocese of Detriot over a priest accused of sexual misconduct.
On the same day, Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarcczyk of Cincinnati also received a subpoena in relation to allegations of child abuse by priests in his diocese.
Last Thursday, Cardinal Edward Egan of New York announced that his archdiocese had complied with a Manhattan district attorney's request for personnel files on priests accused of sexual abuse over the last four decades. On the same day lawyer Jeff Anderson began legal action against not only Catholic dioceses in Florida and Oregon but also against the Vatican itself for their alleged role in covering up cases of child sex abuse.
In an ongoing sexual abuse trial in Santa Rosa, California, Father Don Kimball stands accused of raping a 14-year-old girl near the altar of a Catholic Church 25 years ago.
Then on Saturday, just as the Vatican was confirming that it had accepted the resignation of the Bishop of Ferns, Dr Brendan Comiskey, Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles revealed that he had been accused of sexual misconduct with a teenage girl in an incident more than 30 years ago.
That list does not include arguably the biggest and most controversial US church scandal, relative to allegations that Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston systematically covered up for paedophile priests in his archdiocese.
Nor does that list make any reference to the sex scandals affecting the Catholic Church in the developing world, problems highlighted by the Pope himself in his November 2001 apostolic exhortation, "Ecclesia in Oceania" .
Furthermore, with reference to Africa, those same problems were vividly and embarrassingly highlighted last year in leaked internal reports written by senior members of women's religious orders, claiming that "sexual abuse of nuns by priests, including rape, is a serious problem".
One of those reports presented in 1995 to Cardinal Martinez Somalo, head of the Vatican's Congregation for Consecrated Life, quoted a vicar general in one African diocese who said that "celibacy in the African context means a priest does not get married but does not mean he does not have children".
Whilst many experts would argue that paedophilia has no connection to enforced celibacy, what remains certain as of today is that the "gift" of priestly celibacy is under lay scrutiny as never before.
What is also crystal clear is that as much as the crimes themselves, it has been the, at best, insensitive handling of the crimes by Church authorities at every level up to the Vatican that has angered, dismayed or puzzled both the faithful and non-faithful alike:
"The Church has been hit by a truck and permitted the truck to back over it several times," says Robert Dilenschneider in the current edition of the US magazine, BusinessWeek.
Dilenschneider, a former corporate chairman who helped to manage the Three Mile Island nuclear leakage crisis, says simply: "The quickest way to deal with a crisis is to tell it all and tell it fast".
The Catholic Church, however, is neither a multinational corporation nor a modern democracy. Whatever else may happen in the future, nothing will happen fast. Rather than consider changing the "custom and practice" of a celibate, all-male priesthood, the church is more concerned about the estimated $1 billion it may have already paid out in settlements in the US alone since 1985.
That financial drain may not only undermine the many good works peformed by the church via its huge network of schools, colleges, hospitals and charites in the US but it will also negatively impinge on the Holy See itself since the US church, along with the German church, is the Vatican's biggest contributor.
Vatican insiders stressed this weekend that, no matter how much genuine concern is felt within the Holy See about the problems of sexual abuse within the clergy and also the past handling of that problem, the idea of doctrinal innovation is simply out of the question. There is a good reason for this and it is that Pope John Paul II has emphatically closed the debate.
Perhaps, in a future pontificate, it may be reopened. What is certain is that in his pre-Easter letter to priests, which touched on the problems of sexual abuse, the Pope appeared to lay the blame for these problems on the shortcomings of private, individual priests rather than on the institutions and dogma of the church.
What is also probably true is the finding of a recent US opinion poll. It found that 83 of 1.500 Catholics surveyed said that when they hear an allegation against a priest, they tend to believe it.
That may well be true much closer to home as well.