"Every two years, about 6000 priests are abused in different ways". This is the result of a survey conducted in England by the University of London, called "Violence against Professionals in the Community", which found out the targets of such abuse are the priests of the Christian religions, especially Catholics and Lutherans. The figures have been published in the last issue of the British "The Pastoral Review". Nick Tolson, member of the Royal Air Force and author of two books: "The Complete Security Manual of Church’ and ‘The Pocket Book of Personal Safety for Clergy", tells about the experiences he made when he was in charge of security for some London churches. "The first attempts to find information about abused priests were unfruitful. Neither the dioceses nor the local police departments had any information. So I wrote to all police departments, and the result was that in the last 12 months over 500 aggressions against priests have been reported." "After all goes on the author the British Crime Survey found out that just 22% of such crimes are reported, the others do not spill out". A long-unsaid problem that the church did not realise until early 2000. As to its causes, the University of London points at the fall in traditional confidence and the rise in antisocial behaviour. The debate is still open within the Church, and Nick Tolson suggests that trainers should be introduced in seminaries so that the future priests know how to behave in such circumstances. (www.thepastoralreview.org).
