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Sunday, June 2nd, 2019

US Catholic Church reports big rise in sex-abuse allegations

Author:     David Crary
Source:     Associated Press
Publication Date:    
Link: US Catholic Church reports big rise in sex-abuse allegations
Stephan:   I have been covering the Roman Catholic sex scandals for a decade now, and always wonder how an organization that clothes itself in sanctity can have allowed something like this to develop? It didn't happen overnight or even over a decade, it has to have been festering for centuries to be that widespread, not just in any single country, but across all the countries where the church is an established institution. The willful ignorance, the blind lookaway, the corruption, and the institutional hypocrisy took time to become a fundamental part of the church. And the money. The dollars, the quarters, and dimes old ladies hold back so the can put them in the collection plate. I always wonder how many poor families could have been helped by the hundreds of millions, maybe billions, paid out to try to make things right to individuals and families caught up in the molestation crisis.  

NEW YORK — Quantifying its vast sex-abuse crisis, the U.S. Roman Catholic Church said Friday that allegations of child sex abuse by clerics more than doubled in its latest 12-month reporting period, and that its spending on victim compensation and child protection surged above $300 million.

During the period from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018, 1,385 adults came forward with 1,455 allegations of abuse, according to the annual report of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection. That was up from 693 allegations in the previous year. The report attributed much of the increase to a victim compensation program implemented in five dioceses in New York state.

According to the report, Catholic dioceses and religious orders spent $301.6 million during the reporting period on payments to victims, legal fees and child-protection efforts. That was up 14% from the previous year and double the amount spent in the 2014 fiscal year.

The number of allegations is likely to rise further during the current fiscal year, given that Catholic dioceses in New Jersey and Pennsylvania have started […]

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