The Vatican statistics are notable in that they show how the peaks in numbers over the years - both of cases reported and sanctions meted out - roughly parallel the years in which abuse scandals were in the news. And they showed that far from diminishing in recent years, the number of cases reported annually to the Vatican has remained a fairly constant 400 or so since 2010, the last year the scandal erupted in public. These cases, however, concern mostly abuse that occurred decades ago.