Rundown of Sex Abuse Within the Catholic Church

Manila Bulletin (Phillipines)
May 19, 2018

https://news.mb.com.ph/2018/05/19/rundown-of-sex-abuse-within-the-catholic-church/

All of Chile’s bishops offered to resign Friday over child sex cover-up claims dating back decades, the latest in a series of abuse scandals facing the Catholic Church globally.

Protesters hold up placards as Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell arrives in court in Melbourne, on May 1, 2018. (AFP/MANILA BULLETIN)

Here is a rundown of other notable cases:

Australia

The third-highest member of the Vatican hierarchy, Australian George Pell was ordered in May to stand trial on “multiple” historical sex charges, which he denies.

His case coincided with an Australian public enquiry that found that seven percent of priests were accused of paedophilic acts between 1950 and 2010.

Austria

Two scandals forced the Vatican to revoke two high-ranking ultra-conservative clerics, Viennese Archbishop Hans Hermann Groer in 1995 and the bishop of Sankt-Poelten, Kurt Krenn, in 2004.

Belgium

In 2010 the bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned after acknowledging sex abuse of two nephews. Since 2012 the Catholic Church in Belgium has received hundreds of complaints and paid almost 4.13 million euros ($4.8 million) in compensation.

Canada

In the late 1980s, a huge scandal broke out regarding the mistreatment of children at an orphanage in Newfoundland in the 1950s-1960s.

Chile

Some 80 members of the Chilean clergy have been implicated in a series of sex abuse affairs over the past few years.

Pope Francis caused outrage during a visit in January by appearing to support a bishop accused of covering up for paedophile priest Fernando Karadima during the 1980s and 1990s. This is the case over which the 34 Chilean bishops presented their resignations Friday.

France

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin and six others will face trial in January 2019 for allegedly covering up for a priest, Bernard Preynat, accused of abusing around 70 scouts in the 1980s. Germany

Since 2010 hundreds of cases of sex abuse against children or adolescents in religious institutions have emerged.The most high-profile involve the Jesuit-run Canisius college in Berlin and the choir in Ratisbonne, southern Germany, where at least 547 children were allegedly victims of abuse, including rapes, between 1945 and 1992.Ireland

Accusations of child abuse in Catholic institutions date back several decades, with the number of underaged victims estimated at around 14,500. Several bishops and priests accused of committing or covering up the abuse have been punished.

Mexico

Mexican bishop Gonzalo Galvan Castillo was forced to resign in 2015 after being accused of protecting a paedophile priest.

The late founder of the ultraconservative Legion of Christ congregation, Marcial Maciel, was forced to resign in 2006, accused of committing sexual abuses of minors.

The Netherlands

In 2011 a study found that tens of thousands of minors had been sexually abused within the Dutch Catholic Church institutions between 1945 and 2010. Some 800 suspects have been identified.

Poland

In 2013 Pope Francis sacked the Vatican ambassador, to the Dominican Republic, Poland’s Jozef Wesolowski, who was charged with sexually abusing minors. He died in 2015 on the eve of his trial.

United States

Between 1950 and 2013 the US Catholic Church received 17,000 complaints of sexual abuse between 1950 and 1980 involving around 6,400 clerics.

Experts speaking at the Vatican said in 2012 the number of abused American minors is probably close to 100,000.

Among senior church members forced to resign for protecting paedophile priests were the late cardinal Bernard Law in Boston and cardinal Roger Mahony in Los Angeles.