NEW YORK (NY)
Irish Central
November 7, 2018
A Boston Globe and Philadelphia Inquirer investigation finds that while US bishops promised reform, they not only failed to adequately respond to sexual misconduct but failed to oust other bishops guilty of abuse.
When US bishops gathered in Dallas in 2002, they promised major reform, after the clergy sex abuse scandal exploded in Boston and the Catholic Church in the United States found itself drowning in scandal.
While this historic meeting of bishops promised an end to the covering up and mishandling of allegations of clerical sex abuse, what they delivered was yet another decade and a half of misleading US Catholics and failing to adequately respond to accusations against both priests and themselves.
According to an investigation carried out by the Boston Globe and Philadelphia Inquirer, which delved into the court records, media reports, and interviews with church officials, victims, and attorneys, these bishops both enabled sexual misconduct of priests and were guilty of it themselves, even in the years following their public declaration of an end to concealment and cover-ups.
The investigation found that more than 130 US bishops – almost a third of those still alive – had been accused of failing to adequately deal with allegations of misconduct, with 50 of these allegations being made regarding incidents that occurred after the bishops’ 2002 gathering.
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