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There have been many cases of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, nuns and members of religious orders. In the 20th and 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.
Michael Harris is a Canadian investigative journalist, radio personality, documentary filmmaker, novelist, iPolitics columnist and the author of nine books.
The Congregation of Christian Brothers is a worldwide religious community within the Catholic Church, founded by Edmund Rice. Their first school was opened in Waterford, Ireland, in 1802. At the time of its foundation, though much relieved from the harshest of the Penal Laws by the Irish Parliament's Relief Acts, much discrimination against Catholics remained throughout the newly created United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland pending full Catholic Emancipation in 1829.
Gordon Arnaud Winter, was the sixth lieutenant governor of Newfoundland from 1974 to 1981.
The Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God, officially the Hospitaller Order of the Brothers of Saint John of God, are a Catholic religious order founded in 1572. In Italian they are also known commonly as the Fatebenefratelli, meaning "Do-Good Brothers", and elsewhere as the "Brothers of Mercy", the "Merciful Brothers" and the "John of God Brothers". The order carries out a wide range of health and social service activities in 389 centres and services in 46 countries.
The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA) was one of a range of measures introduced by the Irish Government to investigate the extent and effects of abuse on children from 1936 onwards. It was commonly known in Ireland as the Ryan Commission, after its chair, Mr Justice Seán Ryan. Judge Laffoy resigned on 2 September 2003, following a departmental review on costs and resources. She felt that: "...the cumulative effect of those factors effectively negated the guarantee of independence conferred on the Commission and militated against it being able to perform its statutory functions." The commission's work started in 1999 and it published its public report, commonly referred to as the Ryan report, on 20 May 2009.
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. While diocesan clergy have arranged parish transfers of abusive priests, so also the Orders' members have been found to relocate abusive Brothers to other places.
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 scandal in the Congregation of Christian Brothers is a major chapter in the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in various Western jurisdictions.
Allegations of abuse of children in certain institutions owned, managed, and largely staffed by the Sisters of Mercy, in Ireland, form a sub-set of allegations of child abuse made against Catholic clergy and members of Catholic religious institutes in several countries in the late 20th century. The abusive conduct allegedly perpetrated at institutions run by the Sisters of Mercy ranged from overuse of corporal punishment to emotional abuse, and included some accusations of sexual abuse by lay persons employed at the institutions.
From the late 1980s, allegations of sexual abuse of children associated with Catholic institutions and clerics in several countries started to be the subject of sporadic, isolated reports. In Ireland, beginning in the 1990s, a series of criminal cases and Irish government enquiries established that hundreds of priests had abused thousands of children over decades. Six reports by the former National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church established that six Irish priests had been convicted between 1975 and 2011. This has contributed to the secularisation of Ireland and to the decline in influence of the Catholic Church. Ireland held referenda to legalise same-sex marriage in 2015 and abortion rights in 2018.
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 Mount Cashel Orphanage was an orphanage that was operated by the Congregation of Christian Brothers in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The facility is remembered for a scandal and protracted court cases regarding abuse of children. The facility opened in 1898; it was closed in 1990.
Reported cases of sexual abuse in St. John's archdiocese is an important chapter in the series of clerical abuse affairs that occurred in the dioceses of Canada.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was a royal commission established in 2013 by the Australian government pursuant to the Royal Commissions Act 1902 to inquire into and report upon responses by institutions to instances and allegations of child sexual abuse in Australia. The establishment of the commission followed revelations of child abusers being moved from place to place instead of their abuse and crimes being reported. There were also revelations that adults failed to try to stop further acts of child abuse. The commission examined the history of abuse in educational institutions, religious groups, sporting organisations, state institutions and youth organisations. The final report of the commission was made public on 15 December 2017.
Karl Richard Toft was a Canadian convicted sex predator and pederast who committed an estimated 200 sexual assaults while working as a guard at the New Brunswick Training School in Kingsclear, New Brunswick. He was regarded as one of Canada's worst sex offenders. Toft was convicted of 34 sex-related charges and sentenced in December 1992 to 13 years in prison. In 1994, Toft appealed the sentence but lost. He served 11 years of his sentence and was freed. He was represented by Daniel Watters, who maintained that two-thirds of the allegations were untrue.
The Honourable Samuel H. S. Hughes (1913–2002), also known less formally as Sam Hughes, was a Canadian lawyer who served as a justice of the Supreme Court of Ontario. He had a less well-known background as a Canadian military historian during the Second World War.
References
- 1 2 Notorious Mount Cashel orphanage to close. CBC Archives, Nov. 27, 1989. Retrieved January 31, 2008. Archived April 22, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Institutional Child Abuse in Canada Criminal Cases Prepared for the Law Commission of Canada October, 1999. Retrieved 28 June 2008.
- ↑ 15 years later, Mount Cashel cases appear to end. CBC News, Friday, May 28, 2004. Retrieved January 31, 2008. Archived February 15, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
