Pope Francis making a speech in the
Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (2018). The
Catholic Church in Chile in 2018 suffered one of the worst of the worldwide Catholic sexual abuse cases, including the
Fernando Karadima case, resulting in several convictions and resignations.
There have been many cases of
sexual abuse of children by
priests,
nuns, and
other members of
religious life in the
Catholic Church. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the cases have involved many allegations, investigations, trials, convictions, acknowledgement and apologies by Church authorities, and revelations about decades of instances of abuse and attempts by Church officials to cover them up.
[3] The abused include mostly boys but also girls, some as young as three years old, with the majority between the ages of 11 and 14.
[4][5][6][7] Criminal cases for the most part do not cover sexual harassment of adults. The accusations of abuse and cover-ups began to receive public attention during the late 1980s.
[8] Many of these cases allege decades of abuse, frequently made by adults or older youths years after the abuse occurred. Cases have also been brought against members of the
Catholic hierarchy who covered up sex abuse allegations and moved abusive priests to other
parishes, where abuse continued.
[9][10]
By the 1990s, the cases began to receive significant media and public attention in several countries, including in
Canada,
United States,
Chile,
Australia,
Ireland, and much of Europe and South America.
[11][12][13] Pope John Paul II was criticised by representatives of the victims of clergy sexual abuse for failing to respond quickly enough to the Catholic sex abuse crisis.
[14] After decades of inaction,
Sinéad O'Connor brought the scandal to a head when
she tore up a photo of John Paul II on a 1992 episode of
Saturday Night Live. The protest drew praise from critics of the church but also the ire of many Catholics, which greatly damaged her career and had a strong possibility of putting her life in danger. Her protest would see increased positive reappraisal as corruption and suppression efforts by the church related to abuse became more popularly known.
In 2002, an investigation by
The Boston Globe, which later inspired the film
Spotlight, led to widespread media coverage of the issue in the United States. Widespread abuse has also been exposed in Europe, Australia, and Chile, reflecting worldwide patterns of long-term abuse as well as the Church hierarchy's pattern of regularly covering up reports of abuse.
[note 1]
From 2001 to 2010, the
Holy See examined sex abuse cases involving about 3,000 priests, some of which dated back fifty years.
[15] Diocesan officials and academics knowledgeable about the
Catholic Church say that sexual abuse by clergy is generally not discussed, and thus is difficult to measure.
[16] Members of the Church's hierarchy have argued that media coverage was excessive and disproportionate, and that such abuse also takes place in other
religions and institutions, a stance that dismayed representatives from other religions who saw it as a device to distance the Church from controversy.
[17]
In a 2001 apology, John Paul II called sexual abuse within the Church "a profound contradiction of the teaching and witness of
Jesus Christ".
[18] Benedict XVI apologised, met with victims, and spoke of his "shame" at the evil of abuse, calling for perpetrators to be brought to justice, and denouncing mishandling by church authorities.
[19][20] In January 2018, referring to a particular case in Chile,
Pope Francis accused victims of fabricating allegations;
[21] by April, he was apologizing for his "tragic error",
[22] and by August was expressing "shame and sorrow" for the tragic history.
[23] He convened a four-day
summit meeting with the participation of the presidents of all the episcopal conferences of the world, which was held in
Vatican City from 21 to 24 February 2019, to discuss preventing sexual abuse by Catholic Church clergy.
[24] In December 2019, Pope Francis made sweeping changes that allow for greater transparency.
[25][26] In June 2021, a team of
U.N. special rapporteurs for the
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) criticized the Vatican, pointing to persistent allegations that the Catholic Church had obstructed and failed to cooperate with domestic judicial proceedings in order to prevent accountability for abusers and compensation for victims.
[27]
Some Christian media and institutions have alleged an
anti-Catholic bias by the reporting media. A report issued by Christian Ministry Resources (CMR) in 2002 stated that contrary to popular opinion, there are more allegations of child sexual abuse in Protestant congregations than Catholic ones, and that sexual violence is most often committed by volunteers rather than by priests themselves.
[28] The report also criticized the way the media reported sexual crimes, stating that the Australian media reported on sexual abuse allegations against Catholic clergy but ignored such allegations against Protestant churches.
[29] Stephen Joseph Rossetti, a Catholic priest, reported that the frequency of
pedophilia amongst the Catholic clergy was no higher than among the general population, although he did not give solid statistics to back it up.
[30]
izvor:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sexual_abuse_cases
