UNITED KINGDOM
The Sun
Allegations have been levelled across the world with the Vatican saying at least 3,400 credible cases were referred to it between 2004 and 2014
By Guy Birchall
12th July 2017
FOR years now the Catholic Church has been rocked by child sex abuse allegations on an almost biblical scale.
Accusations against priests have been levelled across the world with the Vatican saying at least 3,400 credible cases were referred to it between 2004 and 2014.
Years and billions of dollars later the full scale of the abuse around the world is not yet known, and the full extent may never be revealed.
Along with the allegations of abuse, cover-ups are also said to have been commonplace amongst the clergy.
But some countries have gone to extraordinary lengths to uncover the crimes committed by men of the cloth.
The Sun looks at just some of the harrowing figures and facts that surround this deeply troubling story of abuse by those who children trusted were doing the work of God.
USA
Abuse by Catholic priests first reared its ugly head in the USA to the public in Louisiana in 1985.
The Rev. Gilbert Gauthe pleaded guilty to 11 counts of molesting boys, shocking the country.
It became clear he had been abusing kids for decades and he would eventually confess to a psychologist to abusing more than 300 children. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
This case and several books in the 1990s served to raise some awareness of the case but the true extent of the problem would not be revealed until 2002.
That year the Boston Globe published an exhaustive list of abuse that had taken place in the Boston area, an event captured in the Oscar winning film Spotlight.
This prompted victims to come forward and more and more lawsuits filed against various Catholic dioceses across the country.
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