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eral statistics without naming specific dioceses, the accused priests or the bishops who supervised them.
• The three auditors hired by the Province of St. Joseph included the Rev. Thomas Doyle, a canon lawyer who was ostracized by bishops after his early warnings in the 1980s about the scope of the abuse problem and has since become an advocate for victims.
• On Tuesday, Doyle credited Celichowski and the order for "prophetic foresight to do what they have done." The Province of St. Joseph, one of several branches of Capuchin Franciscans, is based in Detroit and has just 174 members with ministries mainly in the Midwest. Still, Doyle said he hoped it would prompt others in the church "to have the courage and the Christian decency to do the same thing."
• Peter Isely, Midwest director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, called the report "a good start" and "a very long overdue validation to victims." But he said the audit lacked the true transparency of a grand jury report. Isely, 52, was sexually assaulted as a student at St. Lawrence Seminary. He said he was particularly disturbed by the finding that despite the cooperation of the province members, the auditors found little documentation of the abuse cases in the order's files.
• The auditors said they interviewed victims, attorneys, friars and former friars and lay people who had worked in the province, while also reviewing minutes of meetings of the Provincial Council, a governing body of the order, dating back to the 1930s. The records contained "coded language" such as "immorality" or "evil actions and speech" to describe molestation, making it impossible for the auditors to determine in some cases whether abuse had occurred. The auditors said the lack of detail reflected a widespread mindset in the order that they should protect fellow friars who had been accused.
• Among the other findings in the report:
• -- Friars ignored Wisconsin laws enacted in 1965, and strengthened over the years, that required adults to report child abuse;
• -- Auditors found twice as many victims at St. Lawrence Seminary as had been previously known, increasing the total from 14 to 28;
• -- The insurer responsible for the St. Lawrence Seminary victims spent about $855,500 on defense costs and only about $107,000 on settlements with victims;
• -- The panel investigated accusations against an additional 23 friars, but could not confirm the claims, in part because of poor record-keeping by the religious order;
• -- In one case, a defense attorney threatened to reveal the sexual orientation of a victim if he testified in a criminal trial. In another case, girls who had been mo

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