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There have been many cases of sexual abuse of children by priests, nuns, and other members of religious life in the Catholic Church. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the cases have involved many allegations, investigations, trials, convictions, acknowledgement and apologies by Church authorities, and revelations about decades of instances of abuse and attempts by Church officials to cover them up. The abused include mostly boys but also girls, some as young as three years old, with the majority between the ages of 11 and 14. Criminal cases for the most part do not cover sexual harassment of adults. The accusations of abuse and cover-ups began to receive public attention during the late 1980s. Many of these cases allege decades of abuse, frequently made by adults or older youths years after the abuse occurred. Cases have also been brought against members of the Catholic hierarchy who covered up sex abuse allegations and moved abusive priests to other parishes, where abuse continued.
The Marist Brothers of the Schools, commonly known as simply the Marist Brothers, is an international community of Catholic religious institute of brothers. In 1817, Marcellin Champagnat, a Marist priest from France, founded the Marist Brothers with the goal of educating young people, especially those most neglected. While most of the brothers minister in school settings, others work with young people in parishes, religious retreats, spiritual accompaniment, at-risk youth settings, young adult ministry, and overseas missions. Since the 2010s an extensive history of sexual abuse within Marist institutions has emerged in the public record.
Philippe Xavier Christian Ignace Marie Barbarin is a French Roman Catholic prelate who was the Archbishop of Lyon from 2002 to 2020. He was made a cardinal in 2003. He was charged in 2017 and convicted in 2019 of failing to report sex abuse allegedly committed by a priest and was given a suspended six-month prison sentence. On 24 June 2019, Barbarin lost his status as leader of the Archdiocese of Lyon, though he retained the title of Archbishop. His conviction was overturned on appeal on 30 January 2020, but Pope Francis accepted Barbarin's resignation as Archbishop of Lyon on 6 March 2020.
The Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle is a suffragan Latin Church diocese of the Archdiocese of Sydney, established in 1847 initially as the Diocese of Maitland and changed to the current name in 1995. The diocese covers the Hunter and Mid North Coast regions of New South Wales in Australia. The bishop of the diocese is Michael Kennedy.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mendoza is in Argentina and is a metropolitan diocese. Its suffragan sees include Neuquén and San Rafael.
This page documents Catholic Church sexual abuse cases by country.
As distinct from abuse by some parish priests, who are subject to diocesan control, there has also been abuse by members of Roman Catholic orders, which often care for the sick or teach at school. Just as diocesan clergy have arranged parish transfers of abusive priests, abusive brothers in Catholic orders are sometimes transferred.
The Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Victoria is part of the Catholic clerical sexual abuse in Australia and the much wider Catholic sexual abuse scandal in general, which involves charges, convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests and members of religious orders. The Catholic Church in Victoria has been implicated in a reported 40 suicides among about 620 sexual abuse victims acknowledged to the public after internal investigations by the Catholic Church in Victoria.
The sexual abuse cases in Dublin archdiocese are major chapters in the series of Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in Ireland. The Irish government commissioned a statutory enquiry in 2006 that published the Murphy Report in November 2009.
The sexual abuse scandal in Phoenix diocese is a significant episode in the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in the United States.
Marylands School was a residential school for children with learning difficulties in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was opened in 1955 and run by the Roman Catholic order Brothers Hospitallers of St. John of God.
Catholic sexual abuse cases in Australia, like Catholic Church sexual abuse cases elsewhere, have involved convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests, members of religious orders and other personnel which have come to light in recent decades, along with the growing awareness of sexual abuse within other religious and secular institutions.
Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in Canada are well documented dating back to the 1960s. The preponderance of criminal cases with Canadian Catholic dioceses named as defendants that have surfaced since the 1980s strongly indicate that these cases were far more widespread than previously believed. While recent media reports have centred on Newfoundland dioceses, there have been reported cases—tested in court with criminal convictions—in almost all Canadian provinces. Sexual assault is the act of an individual touching another individual sexually and/or committing sexual activities forcefully and/or without the other person's consent. The phrase Catholic sexual abuse cases refers to acts of sexual abuse, typically child sexual abuse, by members of authority in the Catholic church, such as priests. Such cases have been occurring sporadically since the 11th century in Catholic churches around the world. This article summarizes some of the most notable Catholic sexual abuse cases in Canadian provinces.
The Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Europe has affected several dioceses in European nations. This article summarises reported cases of sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy and representatives of the Catholic Church by country and diocese.
Gerald Francis Ridsdale is an Australian laicised Catholic priest and sex offender. He was convicted between 1993 and 2017 of a large number of child sexual abuse and indecent assault charges against 65 children aged as young as four years. The offences occurred from the 1960s to the 1980s while Ridsdale worked as a school chaplain at St Alipius Primary School, a boys' boarding school in the Victorian regional city of Ballarat.
The parish transfers of abusive Catholic priests, also known as priest shuffling, is a pastoral practice that has greatly contributed to the aggravation of Catholic Church sexual abuse cases. 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 returned to the lay state by laicization. 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.
The Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Latin America is a significant part of the series of Catholic sex abuse cases.
The sexual abuse scandal in the Salesian Order is a major chapter in the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in various Western jurisdictions.
Giuseppe Carraro was an Italian Roman Catholic prelate who served as the Bishop of Verona from 1958 until his retirement in 1978. He also served as the Bishop of Vittorio Veneto until his transferral to the see of Verona.
Antonio Provolo was an Italian Roman Catholic priest best known for his work with deaf-mute children in Verona. He was the founder of the Institute for the Deaf as well as two religious orders dedicated to the care of deaf-mute children. Provolo was a noted musician and singer and put these skills to tremendous use during his life while also resorting to his own form of miming and sign language to better interact and educate with deaf and mute children to whom he dedicated his work. His school's work suffered after his death since those who followed him did not possess his charisma nor his miming skills, though the work of his orders spread across the globe. His school is now mired in sexual abuse allegations which continue at present.
References
- ↑ http://jdsde.oxfordjournals.org/content/4/1/69.full.pdf [ dead link ]
- ↑ "Church, deaf students square off on Italian TV | WWRN - World-wide Religious News".
- 1 2 3 "Two priests in Argentina arrested over alleged abuse of at least 22 children at school for the deaf | Catholic Herald". Archived from the original on 2019-06-29. Retrieved 2017-05-11.
- 1 2 3 4 "Trial date set for Argentine priests accused of abusing deaf children".
- ↑ "Nun charged for helping priests sexually abuse deaf children" . Independent.co.uk . 6 May 2017. Archived from the original on 2022-05-07.
- 1 2 "Two Catholic priests found guilty of sex abuse in Argentina". Al Jazeera. 25 November 2019. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
- ↑ Dube, Ryan (25 November 2019). "Argentine Court Convicts Two Catholic Priests of Sexually Abusing Deaf Students". Wall Street Journal.
- 1 2 Politi, Daniel; Zraick, Karen (26 November 2019). "2 Priests Convicted in Argentina of Sexual Abuse of Deaf Children". The New York Times.
- ↑ "Argentina: Catholic priests jailed for abusing deaf children". BBC News. 25 November 2019. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
- ↑ Calatrava, Almudena (26 November 2019). "Priests guilty of abusing deaf children at Argentine school". Crux (online newspaper) . Retrieved 27 November 2019.
- ↑ "Catholic priests jailed for sexually abusing deaf children in Argentina". France 24. 26 November 2019. Retrieved 26 November 2019.