Catholic Church fights against sexual abuse

UPLAND (IN)
The Echo

April 26, 2019

By Abigail Roberts

According to BBC News, the 1.2 billion-member Catholic Church continues to globally face the exposure of decades of sexual abuse, specifically the abuse of minors.

Discussion on sexual abuse within the Catholic Church exploded into the U.S. public eye in 2002 after a report by the Boston Globe investigative team, Spotlight.

Spotlight’s publication unleashed a waterfall of victim testimonials, both in the U.S. and around the world, despite the fact that the victims’ ability to legally file a charge had expired on many of these cases.

Taylor is home to almost a dozen Catholic students, primarily from Central and South America.

“As a Catholic it is hard to hear about all of it,” freshman Elizabeth Magallanes said. “It’s really heartbreaking. I can’t even wrap my mind across the fact that there are priests doing this.”

In a time when sexual abuse is more widely discussed, an open platform has emerged for these issues to be brought into the light.

In September, a study revealed that German priests sexually abused 3,677 minors between 1946 and 2014. The study was carried out by three German universities and revealed many documents related to sexual abuse in the Catholic Church were destroyed.

“As we look at how the abuse scandals have impacted the churches,” Assistant Professor of Biblical Ministries Hank Voss said. “We see that sin revealed destroys sin concealed. Sin always loses power when it is brought into the light.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.