link to New York Times article.

A landmark study in 1990 by the scholar A. W. Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine, found that 20 percent of Catholic priests were involved in continuing sexual relationships with women, and an additional 8 percent to 10 percent had occasional heterosexual relationships.

“It’s not so much that people don’t know it happens, but they don’t know how much it happens,”…

The most damning aspect of the incident is not that Catholic priests violate their celibacy–priests are humans after all, and all humans sin–but that the Franciscans extracted a confidentiality agreement while keeping the priest in concern on active ministry, allowing the priest to essentially live a married life for years. This is a blunt disregard of the celibacy principle and utterly irresponsible.

“We quickly discovered that many of these priests were playboys. They weren’t looking for any discernment, they were simply staying and playing…”