2230 K Thu 18 April 2002
I found a mistake in a story on page 11 of The Age newspaper today.
Catholic Church vows action on US scandals
... Cardinal Theodoe McCarrick ...
In a letter, he cited the most reported cases -- from the Boston area, in which 35 priests had "credibly been accused of this crime". He stressed this covered the past 50 years, when a total of 21,000 priests had been in service.
"We can all do the math. It comes to some 1.6 per cent of the priests ...
Reuters
I did the math for the percentage: 35 / 21000 * 100 = 0.167 per cent.
I sent an email to The Age about it, but they have not rung to verify it, so I guess I will not be in print tomorrow.
I don't know who made the mistake or which number is wrong. Perhaps the Cardinal. Perhaps the Reuters reporter. Perhaps The Age in printing.
But we can all do the math. We can all see someone made a mistake. Not many things are so easily verifiable.
Copyright J.R. Lilburne, 18 April 2002.