Spike in US church sex abuse reports

An annual audit of reports of sexual abuse by members of the US Roman Catholic clergy shows sharp increases in the number of new claims and in the value of settlements to victims.

The audit released on Friday showed that 838 people came forward from July 1, 2014, through June 30, 2015, to say they had been sexually abused by priests, deacons or members of religions orders while they were children, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops said.

That is up 35 per cent from 620 new reports of abuse a year earlier, an increase that the bishops said largely reflected a large number of claims in six dioceses that had either filed for bankruptcy or were located in states that opened windows allowing victims to sue over old cases of sexual assault.

While the bulk of the reports related to cases of abuse date back to the 1960s, '70s and '80s, there were 26 reports made by minors of more recent abuse.

The report also found that Catholic parishes and other orders spent $US153.6 million ($A212.52 million) on settlements, legal fees and other expenses related to claims of sex assault over the audit period, up 29 per cent from $US119.1 million a year earlier.

The report does not say what cities saw the sharpest increases.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis filed for bankruptcy and the states of Minnesota and Hawaii lifted their statutes of limitations for reporting old cases of abuse during the period covered by the report.

Bankruptcies have typically led to spikes in reports by abuse survivors afraid they are seeing their last opportunities to seek redress, said Marci Hamilton, a professor at New York's Cardozo School of Law who has studied the abuse crisis.

"All these survivors come out of the woodwork who might never have done so except that this looks like it's their only chance," Hamilton said.