Apparently the British state is rolling out the red carpet for a seriously evil rape facilitator. Pope Benedict XVI is the boss of a church that acts as a ''patron, protector and financier of child rape'', says one secularist writer. The Independent has reported that in America more than ''10,000 people have come forward to say they were raped as part of this misery-go-round'' overseen by his holiness and his lackeys. In Ireland alone, a tiny country of 4.5 million people, ''Thousands were raped in reform schools'', said a British broadsheet headline last year, ramming home the ugly truth of how many children have been raped by the Catholic Church's army of paedophile priests.

But how true is this ugly truth? Were 10,000 children in America and thousands more in Ireland really raped by Catholic priests? No. In the increasingly caliginous, almost inquisitorial mindset of sections of the New Atheist anti-Pope lobby, every allegation of abuse against a Catholic priest - whether sex talk or fondling or actual penile penetration - has been lumped together under ''rape'', and every allegation described as a proven ''rape'' - regardless of whether it resulted in a legal trial, never mind a conviction.

The term ''paedophile priest'' has become such a part of everyday lingo that most people, when they read that more than 10,000 children have come forward to say they were raped by priests, would probably think it possible. But it isn't true.

The Independent was referring to a study commissioned by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and published in 2004. It covered the period of 1950 to 2002, and found 10,667 individuals in the US had made allegations of sexual abuse against priests (against 4392 priests, or about 4 per cent of their ranks). But this doesn't mean that these 10,000 came forward to say they were raped.

The allegations ranged from verbal abuse (being forced to indulge in sex talk) to being shown pornography, to being touched by a priest over or under their clothing. There were more serious allegations, including being coerced into mutual masturbation, oral sex and, in some instances, rape. A total of 1203 individuals alleged rape or attempted rape, not 10,000.