There have been many cases of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, nuns, Popes and other members of religious life. 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.
Stanisław Jan Dziwisz is a Polish prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Kraków from 2005 until 2016. He was created a cardinal in 2006. He was a long-time and influential aide to Pope John Paul II, a friend of Pope Benedict XVI, and an ardent supporter of John Paul II's beatification.
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptised Catholics worldwide as of 2019. As the world's oldest and largest continuously functioning international institution, it has played a prominent role in the history and development of Western civilisation. The church consists of 24 particular churches and almost 3,500 dioceses and eparchies around the world. The pope, who is the bishop of Rome, is the chief pastor of the church. The bishopric of Rome, known as the Holy See, is the central governing authority of the church. The administrative body of the Holy See, the Roman Curia, has its principal offices in Vatican City, a small enclave of the Italian city of Rome, of which the pope is head of state.
Roy Bourgeois is an American activist, a laicized Roman Catholic priest, and the founder of the human rights group School of the Americas Watch. He is the 1994 recipient of the Gandhi Peace Award and the 2011 recipient of the American Peace Award and also has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
John J. McNeill was a Catholic priest, psychotherapist and academic theologian in the United States, with a particular reputation within the field of queer theology. McNeill was awarded the National Human Rights Award in 1984 for his contributions to lesbian and gay rights, and was made the Grand Marshal of the New York City Gay Rights Parade in 1987. McNeill was expelled from the Society of Jesus in 1987 at the request of the Vatican, but continued to serve as a Catholic priest in New York City until his death on September 22, 2015.
The Pontifical Council for Culture was a dicastery of the Roman Curia charged with fostering the relationship of the Catholic Church with different cultures. It was erected by Pope John Paul II on 20 May 1982 and in 1993 he merged the Pontifical Council for Dialogue with Non-Believers, which had operated independently since 1965 into it. When the Apostolic constitution Praedicate evangelium promulgated by Pope Francis took effect on 5 May 2022, the Pontifical Council for Culture was merged with the Congregation for Catholic Education to create the new Dicastery for Culture and Education.
Deliver Us from Evil is a 2006 American documentary film that explores the life of Irish Catholic priest Oliver O'Grady, who admitted to having molested and raped approximately 25 children in Northern California from the late 1970s through the early 1990s. Written and directed by Amy J. Berg, it won the Best Documentary Award at the 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, though it lost to An Inconvenient Truth. The title of the film refers to a line in the Lord's Prayer.
Antonio María Javierre Ortas S.D.B. was a cardinal of the Catholic Church, and former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in the Vatican.
Roman Catholic Womenpriests (RCWP) is an independent international organization that claims a connection to the Roman Catholic Church. It is descended from the Danube Seven, a group of women who assert that they were ordained as priests in 2002 by Rómulo Antonio Braschi, before being excommunicated by the Vatican, and their request for a revocation of the excommunication denied, in Decree on the Attempted Ordination of Some Catholic Women. According to a book published by the organization, Women Find a Way: The Movement and Stories of Roman Catholic Womenpriests, at least two other unnamed bishops were involved in the ordination. In addition, the RCWP considers these bishops to be in good standing, and the RCWP says the bishops acted in full apostolic succession.
Twist of Faith is a 2004 American documentary film about a man who confronts the Catholic Church about the abuse he suffered as a teenager, directed by Kirby Dick. The film was produced for the cable network HBO and screened at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature.
In the liturgical traditions of the Catholic Church, the term ordination refers to the means by which a person is included in one of the orders of bishops, priests or deacons. The teaching of the Catholic Church on ordination, as expressed in the Code of Canon Law, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the apostolic letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis, is that only a Catholic male validly receives ordination, and "that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." In other words, the male priesthood is not considered by the church a matter of policy but an unalterable requirement of God. As with priests and bishops, the church ordains only men as deacons. The church does not ordain anyone who has undergone sex reassignment surgery and may sanction or require therapy for priests who are transsexual, contending that these are an indicator of mental instability.
Women play significant roles in the life of the Catholic Church, although excluded from the Catholic hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons. In the history of the Catholic Church, the church often influenced social attitudes toward women. Influential Catholic women have included theologians, abbesses, monarchs, missionaries, mystics, martyrs, scientists, nurses, hospital administrators, educationalists, religious sisters, Doctors of the Church, and canonised saints. Women constitute the majority of members of consecrated life in the Catholic Church: in 2010, there were around 721,935 professed women religious. Motherhood and family are given an exalted status in Catholicism, with The Blessed Virgin Mary holding a special place of veneration. The church’s traditionally conservative approach to women and woman’s issues may nevertheless be regarded as sexist and discriminatory.
Johannes Nicolaas Maria Wijngaards is a Catholic scripture scholar and a laicized priest.
"A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion", alternatively referred to by its pull quote "A Diversity of Opinions Regarding Abortion Exists Among Committed Catholics" or simply "The New York Times ad", was a full-page advertisement placed on October 7, 1984, in The New York Times by Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC). Its publication brought to a head the conflict between the Vatican and those American Catholics who were pro-choice. The publicity and controversy which followed its publication helped to make the CFFC an important element of the pro-choice movement.
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God is a 2012 documentary film directed by Alex Gibney. The film details the first known protest against clerical sex abuse in the United States by four deaf men. It features the voices of actors Jamey Sheridan, Chris Cooper, Ethan Hawke and John Slattery, who provide the voices of the deaf interviewees.
Holy Water-Gate: Abuse Cover-up in the Catholic Church is a 2004 documentary which investigates the crisis that emerged within the Roman Catholic Church, as victims of child sex abuse by priests fight to bring their abusers to justice. The film begins as a personal journey of filmmaker Mary Healey, who is also Catholic. Through key players in the scandal, including victims, whistle-blower priests and a senior ranking U.S. Cardinal who is called upon by the Vatican to control an ever-growing storm, Holy Water-Gate brings the viewer deep within the institutional mind of the U.S. Catholic Church: a powerful establishment that not only failed the victims for many years by not acknowledging their abuse, but also enabled some priests to continue to abuse more children by relocating them in other parishes. This intensely personal and political story investigates the crisis and exposes the reluctance within the U.S. mainstream media for decades to report sexual abuse crimes against children by priests.
Evgeny Mikhailovich Afineevsky is an Israeli-American film director, producer and cinematographer who lives in the United States. In 2016 Afineevsky was nominated for an Academy Award and Emmys for his documentary Winter on Fire.
The first Study Commission on the Women's Diaconate was established in August 2016 by Pope Francis to review the theology and history of the ministry of deaconess in the Roman Catholic Church and the question of whether women might be allowed to become deacons. The commission did not reach a general agreement. After the Amazonian synod, Pope Francis promised to re-open this commission. He established a second commission instead in April 2020.
The Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research is a British "progressive" think tank producing research on controversial issues within contemporary Roman Catholic theology. It does so by coordinating an international network of academics, most of whom are Roman Catholic.
Prey is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Matt Gallagher and released in 2019. An examination of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the film centres on Rod McLeod, a man who is suing the church for restitution after having been abused in childhood by priest William Hodgson “Hod” Marshall, and includes testimonial interviews from some of Marshall's other victims.
