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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.
Former names: Diocese of Natchitoches (1853-1910), Diocese of Alexandria (1910-1977), Diocese of Alexandria-Shreveport (1977-1986).
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.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle is a suffragan Latin Rite 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.
This page documents Catholic Church sexual abuse cases by country.
Sex Crimes and the Vatican (2006) is a documentary film presented by the BBC program Panorama. It aired on 1 October 2006.
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.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston sex abuse scandal was part of a series of Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in the United States that revealed widespread crimes in the American Roman Catholic Church. In early 2002, TheBoston Globe published results of an investigation that led to the criminal prosecutions of five Roman Catholic priests and thrust the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy into the national spotlight. Another accused priest who was involved in the Spotlight scandal also pleaded guilty. The Globe's coverage encouraged other victims to come forward with allegations of abuse, resulting in numerous lawsuits and 249 criminal cases.
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.
Louis Edward Gélineau is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, serving as bishop of the Diocese of Providence from 1972 to 1997.
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 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 ecclesiastical response to Catholic sexual abuse cases is a major aspect of the academic literature surrounding the Church's child sexual abuse scandal. The Catholic Church's response to the scandal can be viewed on 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.
The media coverage of Catholic sex abuse cases is a major aspect of the academic literature surrounding the pederastic priest scandal.
The Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Europe has affected several dioceses in European nations. Italy is an exceptional case as the 1929 Lateran Treaty gave the Vatican legal autonomy from Italy, giving the clergy recourse to Vatican rather than Italian law.
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 Curial response to Catholic sexual abuse cases was a significant part of the Church's response to Catholic sexual abuse cases. Its policies have shifted from favoring secrecy in the 20th century to active reform and apologies in the 21st century. Under the current leadership of Pope Francis, the issue has been addressed through direct instructions to report cases of sexual abuse and revoking the former policies of secrecy.
14% of New Zealand Catholic diocesan clergy have been accused of abuse since 1950. Several high profile cases are linked to Catholic schools.
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.
Revelation is a three-episode Australian documentary series directed by Nial Fulton and Sarah Ferguson. The series was broadcast on ABC TV in March 2020. In a world television first, the producers took cameras into the criminal trials of Catholic priests accused of sex crimes against children and interviewed Father Vincent Ryan and Brother Bernard McGrath, two of the most prolific child sex abusers in Australia. The final episode features Cardinal George Pell, a senior Catholic cleric accused of abusing boys at a Ballarat orphanage in Australia.
References
- ↑ Hand of God PBS | Frontline
