The broader reckoning in the Catholic Church on sex abuse
The Boston Globe’s seminal 2002 investigation of five local priests who were later convicted and sentenced to prison for sexually abusing children sparked an international reckoning on the church’s history of protecting predators in the clergy. In the decades since, there have been further investigations into the national scope of the abuse, but they often seem to only scratch the surface.
In 2018, then-Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan wrote a report finding the Catholic Church in Illinois had withheld the names of at least 500 priests accused of sexually abusing children. The church had only reported cases to law enforcement that it believed to be credible, but Madigan contended that it should have come forth with every accusation.
That year, a Pennsylvania grand jury also named 300 priests who had sexually abused more than 1,000 children over 70 years. Their report indicated that there were likely thousands more victims whose records had been lost over the years or who feared coming forward.
More than a dozen other states have since opened broad investigations of clergy accused of sexual abuse. That includes an ongoing investigation in Maryland, which has already alleged that clergy sexually abused more than 600 children between the 1940s and 2002.
In one of the most high-profile such scandals of recent years, Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, was defrocked after being accused of sexually abusing children as well as young priests and seminarians. He is one of the highest-ranking Catholic Church officials to date to resign over sex abuse allegations.
The Illinois investigation comes on the heels of a decision by Pope Francis in March to update and expand a 2019 church law that lays out procedures to investigate senior religious leaders. He confirmed that adults can also be victims of abuse and that lay church leaders, not just those who are ordained, can also be investigated under the church law.
But given that Francis has admitted that he is “part of the problem” because he initially dismissed a particularly shocking sex abuse scandal in Chile that eventually prompted every bishop in the country to resign, it’s hard to see how the church can effectively self-police. And that has led to continuing efforts by law enforcement in places like Illinois to uncover the extent of the church’s abuse.
Article Appeared @https://www.vox.com/2023/5/24/23736234/illinois-catholic-church-child-sex-abuse