UNITED STATES
Christian Today
Carey Lodge CHRISTIAN TODAY JOURNALIST 03 November 2015
Sex abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church in the US have cost the institution almost $4 billion over six decades, the National Catholic Register (NCR) has found.
An extensive investigation revealed that the Church paid out at least $3,994,797,060 between 1950 and August 2015; almost $1bn more than previously estimated.
Changing methods of collecting and recording data, confidentiality restrictions and incomplete information mean that the figure is not final, and the NCR says it is “almost certainly a low estimate”.
Scores of allegations of sex abuse by clergy have been made against the Catholic Church in recent years, and the Vatican admitted in 2014 that it had defrocked almost 850 priests in the past decade as a result.
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