Post by Cloud HobbitAnother source worth looking at.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases_in_the_United_States
The issue of child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests was first publicized in 1985 when a Louisiana priest pled guilty to 11 counts of molestation of boys.[1] It was again brought to national attention when a number of books on the topic were published in the 1990s,[2] and again in 2002 following a series of publications by the Boston Globe.
As it became clear that there was truth to many of the allegations and that there was a pattern of cover-ups in a number of large dioceses across the United States, the issue became a nationwide scandal, creating a crisis for the Catholic Church in the United States. Allegations in the United States also encouraged victims in other nations to come forward, rapidly creating a global crisis for the Church. Over many decades, priests and lay members of religious orders in the Roman Catholic Church had sexually abused children on such a large scale, that the accusations reached into the thousands.[3] A major aggravating factor was the actions of Catholic bishops to keep these crimes secret and to reassign the accused to other parishes in positions where they had continued unsupervised contact with youth.
Many of the accused priests were forced to resign or were laicized. In addition, several bishops who had participated in the cover-up were also forced to resign or retire.[4] The dioceses in which the crimes were committed found it necessary to make financial settlements with the victims totaling in the hundreds of millions of dollars.[5] The revelations nationwide led to a "zero tolerance" policy by the National Council of Catholic Bishops. Reported incidences since that time have dropped substantially and, when they occurred, been reported by the church itself.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas paid $30.9 million in 1998 to twelve victims of one priest ($45.4 million in present-day terms).[6][7]
In early 2002, the Boston Globe covered the criminal prosecutions of five Roman Catholic priests in an article that won an uncontested Pulitzer Prize. The issue of child rape and sexual assault of Roman Catholic children became a national scandal.[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] The coverage of these cases encouraged others to come forward with allegations of abuse, resulting in more lawsuits and criminal cases.[5]
In July 2003 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville paid $25.7 million to "settle child sexual-abuse allegations made in 240 lawsuits naming 34 priests and other church workers."[6] In 2003, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston settled a large case for $85 million with 552 alleged victims.[17]
In 2004, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange settled nearly 90 cases for $100 million.[18]
In April 2007 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon agreed to a $75 million settlement with 177 claimants and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle agreed to a $48 million settlement with more than 160 victims.[19] In July 2007 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles reached a $660 million agreement with more than 500 alleged victims, in December 2006, the archdiocese had a settlement of 45 lawsuits for $60 million.[20][21] In September 2007, the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego reached a $198.1 million "agreement with 144 childhood sexual abuse victims."[22]
In July 2008 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver agreed "to pay $5.5 million to settle 18 claims of childhood sexual abuse."[23]
The Associated Press estimated the total from settlements of sex abuse cases from 1950–2007 to be more than $2 billion.[21] BishopAccountability reports that figure reached more than $3 billion in 2012.[24][25]
Addressing "a flood of abuse claims" five dioceses (Tucson, Arizona; Spokane, Washington; Portland, Oregon.; Davenport, Iowa, and San Diego) got bankruptcy protection.[21] Eight Catholic dioceses have declared bankruptcy due to sex abuse cases from 2004–2011.[26]
Scope and nature of the problemEdit
Allegations of sexual abuse by priests were widespread, occurring in cities across the country, including Boston, Chicago, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Orange County, Palm Beach, Philadelphia and Portland, Eureka, California[27][28][29][30][31] as well as in dioceses across Europe.
In 2008, the Church asserted that the scandal was a very serious problem, but at the same time, estimated that it was "probably caused by 'no more than 1 per cent' (or about 5,000) of the around 410,000 Roman Catholic priests worldwide.[32] The overwhelming majority (approximately 80%) of reported cases of sexual abuse of minors occurred in the United States.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) commissioned the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to conduct a comprehensive study based on surveys completed by the Roman Catholic dioceses in the United States. The product of the study, titled the John Jay Report indicated that some 11,000 allegations had been made against 4,392 priests in the USA. This number constituted approximately 4% of the priests who had served during the period covered by the survey (1950–2002).[33]
Actions of the Catholic hierarchyEdit
Historically, the Church has typically addressed sexual abuse as an internal matter. Abusive priests were sanctioned under canon law and sometimes received treatment from specialized Catholic service agencies, with relatively few of the offending priests reported to civil authorities. For example, 6,000 pages of documents released in a Milwaukee court case showed a pattern of on-going abuse by a large number of priests systematically switched to different assignments while church administrators failed to inform secular law enforcement agencies.[34]
Abusers moved to different locationsEdit
The Church was widely criticized when it was discovered that some bishops knew about the crimes committed, but reassigned the accused instead of seeking to have them permanently removed from the priesthood.[5][35] In defense of this practice, some have pointed out that public school administrators acted in a similar manner when dealing with teachers accused of sexual misconduct,[36] as did the Boy Scouts of America.[37]
Some bishops have been heavily criticized for moving offending priests from parish to parish, where they still had personal contact with children, rather than seeking to have them permanently removed from the priesthood. Instead of reporting the incidents to police, many dioceses directed the offending priests to seek psychological treatment and assessment.
In response to these allegations, defenders of the Church's actions have suggested that in reassigning priests after treatment, bishops were acting on the best medical advice then available, a policy also followed by the US public school system when dealing with accused teachers. Some bishops and psychiatrists have asserted that the prevailing psychology of the times suggested that people could be cured of such behavior through counseling.[35][38] Many of the abusive priests had received counseling before being reassigned.[39][40] Critics have questioned whether bishops are necessarily able to form accurate judgments on a priest's recovery.[citation needed] The priests were allowed to resume their previous duties with children only when the bishop was advised by the treating psychologists or psychiatrists that it was safe for them to resume their duties.[citation needed]
Failure to report alleged criminal acts to policeEdit
From a legal perspective, the most serious criticism aside from the incidents of child sexual abuse themselves was by the bishops, who failed to report accusations to the police. In response to the failure to report abuse to the police, lawmakers have changed the law to make reporting of abuse to police compulsory. An example of this can be found in Massachusetts, USA.[41]
Handling of evidenceEdit
William McMurry, a Louisville, Kentucky lawyer, filed suit against the Vatican[42] in June 2004 on behalf of three men allegedly abusing as far back as 1928, accusing Church leaders of organizing a cover-up of cases of sexual abuse of children. In November 2008, the United States Court of Appeals in Cincinnati denied the Vatican's claim of sovereign immunity and allowed the case to proceed. The Vatican initially stated that it did not plan to appeal the ruling.
Awareness of the problemEdit
Some date the current sexual abuse scandal to an article published in the National Catholic Reporter in 1985.[43] After that, the scandal remained at the fringes of public attention but did not become a focus of national attention until the mid-1990s when a number of books were published on the topic.[2] The topic became the focus of intense scrutiny and debate after the Boston Globe published a series of articles covering cases of sexual abuse.
In 2002, criminal charges were brought against five Roman Catholic priests in Boston, (John Geoghan, John Hanlon, Paul Shanley, Robert V. Gale and Jesuit priest James Talbot) which ultimately resulted in the conviction and sentencing of each to prison.[44] The ongoing coverage of these cases by the Boston Globe thrust the issue of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests into the national limelight.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][45] The coverage of these cases encouraged other victims to come forward with their allegations of abuse resulting in more lawsuits and criminal cases.[5]
Prosecution by civil authoritiesEdit
In June 2012, Msgr. William J. Lynn, of the archdiocese of Philadelphia, became the first senior official convicted in the United States for covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests he oversaw. Lynn was convicted of child endangerment for, as the official in charge of handling abuse complaints, reassigning known abusers to new parishes instead of keeping them away from children.[46] He was sentenced to three to six years in prison.[47]
The largest concentrations of sex abuse cases have been in the United States,[citation needed] some of these cases have resulted in multimillion-dollar settlements with many claimants. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas paid $30.9 million in 1998 to twelve victims of one priest.[6] In July 2003 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville paid $25.7 million to "settle child sexual-abuse allegations made in 240 lawsuits naming 34 priests and other church workers."[6] In 2003 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston also settled a large case for $85 million with 552 alleged victims.[17]
In 2004, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange settled nearly 90 cases for $100 million.[18] In April 2007 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon agreed to a $75 million settlement with 177 claimants and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle agreed to a $48 million settlement with more than 160 victims.[19] In July 2007 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles reached a $660 million agreement with more than 500 alleged victims, in December 2006, the archdiocese had a settlement of 45 lawsuits for $60 million.[20][21] In September 2007 the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego reached a $198.1 million "agreement with 144 childhood sexual abuse victims."[22]
In July 2008 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver agreed "to pay $5.5 million to settle 18 claims of childhood sexual abuse."[23] The Associated Press estimated the total from settlements of sex abuse cases from 1950–2007 to be more than $2 billion.[21] According to the USCCB that figure reached more than $2.6 billion in 2008.[25] Addressing "a flood of abuse claims" five dioceses (Tucson, Arizona; Spokane, Washington; Portland, Oregon.; Davenport, Iowa, and San Diego) got bankruptcy protection.[21] Eight Catholic dioceses have declared bankruptcy due to sex abuse cases from 2004–2011.[48]
Response of the ChurchEdit
Although many cases could not be prosecuted because the statute of limitations in civil law, the Church's canon law allows for prosecution of many of those cases.[citation needed]
The Catholic Church responded to the scandal at three levels: the diocesan level, the episcopal conference level and the Vatican. Responses to the scandal proceeded at all three levels in parallel with the higher levels becoming progressively more involved as the gravity of the problem became more apparent.
Before the Boston Globe coverage of the sexual abuse scandal in the Boston archdiocese, handling of sexual abuse allegations was largely left up to the discretion of individual bishops. After the number of allegations exploded following the Globe's series of articles, U.S. bishops felt compelled to formulate a coordinated response at the episcopal conference level.
Although the Vatican did not respond immediately to the series of articles published by the Boston Globe in 2002, it has been reported that Vatican officials were, in fact, monitoring the situation in the U.S. closely.[49] Over time, it became more apparent that the problem warranted greater Vatican involvement.
Diocesan responses to the problemEdit
The response to allegations of sexual abuse in a diocese was largely left to the bishop or archbishop. Many of the accused priests were forced to resign or were laicized. In addition, several bishops who had participated in the cover-up were also forced to resign or retire.[4]
The dioceses in which abuse was committed or in which abuse allegations were settled out of court found it necessary to make financial settlements with the victims totaling over $1.5 billion as of March 2006.[50] The number and size of these settlements made it necessary for the dioceses to reduce their ordinary operating expenses by closing churches and schools. In many instances, dioceses were forced to declare bankruptcy as a result of the settlements.
Initial response of the VaticanEdit
On April 30, 2001, John Paul II issued a letter stating that "a sin against the Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue by a cleric with a minor under 18 years of age is to be considered a grave sin, or 'delictum gravius.'"[51]
John F. Allen Jr., Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, has commented that many American Catholics saw the Vatican’s initial silence on the Boston Globe stories as showing a lack of concern or awareness about the issue. However, Allen said that he doesn't know anyone in the Roman Curia who was not horrified "by the revelations that came out of the Globe and elsewhere" or that "would defend Cardinal Law’s handling of the cases in Boston" or "would defend the rather shocking lack of oversight that revealed itself [although] they might have different analyses of what should have happened to him".[49] Allen described the Vatican's perspective as being somewhat skeptical of the media handling of the scandal. In addition, he asserted that the Vatican viewed American cultural attitudes toward sexuality as being somewhat hysterical as well as exhibiting a lack of understanding of the Catholic Church.
No one [in the Vatican] thinks the sexual abuse of kids is unique to the States, but they do think that the reporting on it is uniquely American, fueled by anti-Catholicism and shyster lawyers hustling to tap the deep pockets of the church. And that thinking is tied to the larger perception about American culture, which is that there is a hysteria when it comes to anything sexual, and an incomprehension of the Catholic Church. What that means is that Vatican officials are slower to make the kinds of public statements that most American Catholics want, and when they do make them they are tentative and halfhearted. It's not that they don't feel bad for the victims, but they think the clamor for them to apologize is fed by other factors that they don't want to capitulate to.[49]
In April 2002, Pope John Paul II called to Rome the U.S. cardinals, plus the president and vice president of the USCCB. The pope asserted that "there is no place in the priesthood or religious life for those who would harm the young." The meeting's participants drew up a final statement, which called for a set of national standards for dealing with sexual abuse of minors by priests and new procedures for dismissing from the clerical state those found guilty of that crime.
Relations between the Vatican and American CatholicsEdit
According to John Allen Jr., Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, cultural differences between the Vatican and American Catholics complicated the process of formulating a comprehensive response to the sexual abuse scandal. Allen asserted that the sexual abuse crisis illustrated that "there is a lot about the American culture and the American Church that puzzles people in the Vatican, and there is much about the Vatican that puzzles Americans and English speakers generally."[49]
Response of the US Conference of Catholic BishopsEdit
As the breadth and depth of the scandals became apparent in dioceses across the United States, it became apparent to the American bishops that a joint response was warranted at the episcopal conference level. John F. Allen Jr. characterized the reaction of the USCCB as calling for “swift, sure and final punishment for priests who are guilty of this kind of misconduct.” In contrast to this, Allen characterized the Vatican's primary concern as wanting to make sure “that everyone’s rights are respected, including the rights of accused clergy" and wanting to affirm that it is not acceptable to "remedy the injustice of sexual abuse with the injustice of railroading priests who may or may not be guilty.”[49]
According to Bishop Blase J. Cupich, then Bishop of Rapid City, by 2008 the U.S. church had trained 5.8 million children to recognize and report abuse. It had run criminal checks on 1.53 million volunteers and employees, 162,700 educators, 51,000 clerics and 4,955 candidates for ordination. It had trained 1.8 million clergy, employees and volunteers in creating a safe environment for children.[52]
Charter for the Protection of Children and Young PeopleEdit
In June 2002, the USCCB unanimously promulgated a Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, sometimes referred to as the Dallas Charter.[53] The charter committed the Catholic Church in the U.S. to the goal of providing a "safe environment" for all children and youth participating in activities sponsored by the Church. To accomplish this, the U.S. bishops pledged to establish uniform procedures for handling sex-abuse allegations against lay teachers in Catholic schools, parish staff members, coaches and other people who represent the Church to young people.[54][55]
The thrust of the charter was the adoption of a "zero tolerance" policy for sexual abuse.[56][57] The USCCB instituted reforms to prevent future abuse by requiring background checks for Church employees.[54] They now require dioceses faced with an allegation to alert the authorities, conduct an investigation and remove the accused from duty.[54][55]
An audit of the Charter was completed in 2010.[58] In June 2014, the chairman of the USCCB's National Review Board reported that Conley's diocese and three eparchies had yet to comply with the USCCB's charter requiring every diocese to submit its procedures for the protection of children to the Review Board for an audit.[59]
Essential NormsEdit
In June 2002, to ensure that each diocese/eparchy in the United States had "procedures in place to respond promptly to allegations of sexual abuse of minors", the USCCB also issued "Essential Norms for Diocesan/Eparchial Policies Dealing with Allegations of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priest or Deacons". In October, the USCCB and the Holy See established a commission of four bishops from the Holy See and four bishops from the United States to review the norms.[60] In November, the U.S. bishops were invited to accept the commission's work, but not to propose amendments.[61] Following the document's approval, the USCCB issued the revised version of the norms.[62] According to the USCCB, the Essential Norms constitute "'particular' canon law", that is, cannon law for the Catholic bishops in the United States.[63]
National studyEdit
The National Review Board engaged the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York to conduct a study analyzing allegations of sexual abuse in Catholic dioceses in United States. The time period covered by the John Jay study began in 1950 and ended in 2002. The product of the study was a report to the National Review Board titled "The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States" and commonly referred to as the "John Jay Report".
The John Jay report indicated that some 11,000 allegations had been made against 4,392 priests in the USA. This number constituted approximately 4% of the 110,000 priests who had served during the period covered by the survey (1950–2002).[33] The report found that, over the 52-year period covered by the study, "the problem was indeed widespread and affected more than 95 percent of the dioceses and approximately 60 percent of religious communities."[64]
Although allegations of clergy sexual abuse have surfaced in several countries around the world, there have been no comprehensive studies which compare the relative incidence of sexual abuse in different areas. However, there is a general perception that the issue has been most prominent in the United States, and then in Australia, Canada and Ireland.[66]
In 2007, there were 408,024 priests in the world.[67]
Number of allegationsEdit
The number of alleged abuses increased in the 1960s, peaked in the 1970s, declined in the 1980s and by the 1990s had returned to the levels of the 1950s.[50]
Of the 11,000 allegations reported by bishops in the John Jay study, 3300 were not investigated because the allegations were made after the accused priest had died. 6700 allegations were substantiated, leaving 1000 which could not be substantiated.
According to the John Jay report, one-third of the accusations were made in the years 2002-3. Another third of the allegations were reported between 1993 and 2001.[50]
Profile of the alleged abusesEdit
The John Jay study found that, "Like in the general population, child sex abuse in the Catholic Church appears to be committed by men close to the children they allegedly abuse." According to the study, "many (abusers) appear to use grooming tactics to entice children into complying with the abuse, and the abuse occurs in the home of the alleged abuser or victim." The study characterized these enticements as actions such as buying the minor gifts, letting the victim drive a car and taking youths to sporting events. The most frequent context for abuse was a social event and many priests socialized with the families of victims. Abuses occurred in a variety of places with the most common being the residence of the priest.[64]
The John Jay report catalogued more than twenty types of sexual abuse ranging from verbal harassment to penile penetration. It said that most of the abusers engaged in multiple types of abuses. According to the report, only 9 percent of the accused performed acts limited to improper touching over the victim's clothes. Slightly more than 27 percent of the allegations involved a cleric performing oral sex and 25 percent involved penile penetration or attempted penile penetration, reported the study.
The study said sexual abuse "includes contacts or interactions between a child and an adult when the child is being used as an object of sexual gratification for the adult." The report categorized allegations of sexual abuse even if the allegation did not involve force or genital or physical contact.[64]
Profile of the victimsEdit
The John Jay report found that 81% of the victims were male. 22% of victims were younger than age 10, 51% were between the ages of 11 and 14, and 27% were between the ages 15 and 17 years.[50][64]
Profile of the abusersEdit
Half the priests were 35 years of age or younger at the time of the first instance of alleged abuse. Fewer than 7 percent of the priests were reported to have experienced physical, sexual or emotional abuse as children. Although 19 percent of the accused priests had alcohol or substance abuse problems, only 9 percent used drugs or alcohol during the alleged instances of abuse. Almost 70 percent of the abusive priests were ordained before 1970, after attending pre-Vatican II seminaries or seminaries that had had little time to adapt to the reforms of Vatican II.[50]
Of the priests who were accused of sexual abuse, 59% were accused of a single allegation. 41% of the priests were the subject of more than one allegation. Just under 3% of the priests were the subject of ten or more allegations. The 149 priests who had more than 10 allegations against them accounted for 2,960 of the total number of allegations.[50]
Some bishops have been heavily criticized for moving offending priests from parish to parish, where they still had personal contact with children, rather than seeking to have them permanently removed from the priesthood by defrocking. The Church was widely criticized when it was discovered that some bishops knew about some of the alleged crimes committed, but reassigned the accused instead of seeking to have them permanently removed from the priesthood.[5][35]
In defense of this practice, some have pointed out that public school administrators engaged in a similar manner when dealing with accused teachers,[36] as did the Boy Scouts of America.[37]
Instead of reporting the incidents to police, many dioceses directed the offending priests to seek psychological treatment and assessment. According to the John Jay report, nearly 40 percent of priests alleged to have committed sexual abuse participated in treatment programs. The more allegations a priest had, the more likely he was to participate in treatment.[50] From a legal perspective, the most serious criticism aside from the incidents of child sexual abuse themselves was by the bishops, who failed to report accusations to the police. In response to the failure to report abuse to the police, lawmakers have changed the law to make reporting of abuse to police compulsory. In 2002, Massachusetts passed a law requiring religious officials to report the abuse of children.[69]
In response to these allegations, defenders of the Church's actions have suggested that in reassigning priests after treatment, bishops were acting on the best medical advice then available, a policy also followed by the US public school system when dealing with accused teachers. Some bishops and psychiatrists have asserted that the prevailing psychology of the times suggested that people could be cured of such behavior through counseling.[35][38] Many of the abusive priests had received counseling before being reassigned.
----------------------------------------
Close to 600 million dollars has been paid out by the church as a result of the abuses.