Clergy Sexual Abuse

The Archdiocese of New York announced plans to establish a $300 million fund to compensate victims of sexual abuse who have sued the church. A spokesperson said the fund would cover settlements for most, if not all, of the roughly 1,300 outstanding claims against the archdiocese. Cardinal Timothy Dolan said the archdiocese would pay for the fund by reducing its budget and selling off assets, including completing the sale of its former headquarters in Manhattan. The announcement came as a federal judge on Monday approved a settlement for the New Orleans Archdiocese to pay $230 million to hundreds of victims of clergy sexual abuse. 

-CNN

In addition, this is from February 13, 2022: for a list of "Illinois priests" and details, click here: ANDERSON REPORT.pdf (go.com)

New Orleans Archdiocese Is Target of Child Sex Trafficking Investigation

 

The Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans is the target of an active child sex trafficking investigation, according to a sweeping and unprecedented search warrant Louisiana state police recently served on an organization that for decades has been submerged in the global church’s clergy molestation scandal.

The clerk at the state criminal courthouse where the warrant was signed released the 11-page document Tuesday. It makes clear that troopers involved in a pending rape prosecution against one priest came to suspect that that case was part of a broader pattern of “widespread sexual abuse of minors dating back decades” that was “covered up and not reported to law enforcement”.

In a stunning assertion made under oath, troopers said they had already recovered documents that “back” the notion that “previous archbishops, the highest-ranking official in the archdiocese, not only knew of the sexual abuse and failed to report all the claims to law enforcement, but spent archdiocese funding to support the accused”.

The warrant requests “ANY and ALL documents that pertain in any way to the sexual abuse of a minor by clergy members employed or otherwise associated with the Archdiocese of New Orleans”, concluding those “records are believed to constitute a violation of” the state’s law against trafficking of children for sexual purposes.

It also seeks “ANY and ALL communications between the Archbishop of New Orleans and ANY department within the Vatican pertaining to child sexual abuse”, among various other files.

The warrant refers to a 48-page memorandum first reported by the Guardian in summer 2023 which summarized secret internal archdiocesan records that the church was required to produce after seeking federal bankruptcy protection in 2020 in order to shield itself from a steadily growing wave of abuse-related litigation.

The memo described that New Orleans’ current archbishop, Gregory Aymond, repeatedly ignored his own advisers who suggested he discipline and publicly reveal the identities of multiple priests and deacons facing substantial, credible accusations of abuse.

Those decisions largely kept the public – and law enforcement – from learning of the accusations until they were reported by journalists years, if not decades, later. It also let clergymen facing abuse allegations to collect lucrative financial benefits that weren’t interrupted until a bankruptcy judge ordered them to cease, and then only partially, with health and medical assistance ultimately left intact.

Attorneys for victims of clerical sexual abuse gained access to the documents forming the basis of that key memo because their clients’ cases became part of the church’s bankruptcy proceedings. Those lawyers handed the memo to law enforcement in 2022, when federal investigators – assisted by state troopers – began investigating New Orleans clergy for possibly violating federal law by taking children across state lines for the purposes of sexual abuse.

The warrant released Tuesday recounted how investigators had gathered statements from “multiple victims … transported … outside of Louisiana where they were sexually abused”.

“Additionally, it was reported that in some instances, ‘gifts’ were given to abuse victims by the accused [molesters] with instructions to pass on or give the gift to certain priests at the next school or church,” the warrant contended. “It was said that the ‘gift’ was a form of signaling to another priest that the person was a target for sexual abuse.”

The warrant also described how victims reported being brought to a seminary that trains Catholic priests in New Orleans – adjacent to the city’s archdiocese – to swim nude in the pool and get “sexually assaulted or abused”.

“This was discovered to be a common occurrence, and it was reported that other members of the archdiocese were present at the pool at the time,” the troopers’ sworn statement maintained. “Although not all, many of the alleged sexual abuse cases or incidents occurred on archdiocese property.”

Such statements gave investigators reasonable suspicion “of previous widespread child sexual [and] determined that further investigation into the archdiocese of New Orleans was necessary”.

The state trooper who obtained the warrant released Tuesday was the same one who arrested 92-year-old retired priest Lawrence Hecker – an acknowledged serial child molester – on rape and kidnapping charges that a grand jury handed up against the clergyman in the fall.

Hecker has pleaded not guilty in connection with allegations that he strangled a teenaged boy unconscious and then sodomized him while they were at a church in 1975.

The warrant released Tuesday alludes to how the victim in that case reported his attack to his principal, Paul Calamari, “but no legal action was taken”.

Troopers’ sworn statement reveals that they questioned Calamari, who is described but not named in the document. During that interrogation, Calamari confessed to molesting a child in the 1970s, an act which eventually led to his being included alongside Hecker in an archdiocesan-released list of priests and deacons whom the New Orleans church considered to be credibly accused molesters.

Since almost immediately following that roster’s release, clergy abuse victims and their advocates have argued that the list omits countless names that should be on it. The church has been forced to add more than 20 names to that list since it was first published, in part because of investigations by WWL and its reporting partners that scrutinized clerics whose cases fit the criteria.

Aymond released the credibly accused roster as the archdiocese struggled to manage continued fallout from the worldwide church’s ongoing clerical sexual abuse crisis.

The search warrant is believed to mark the first-time authorities have sought the entire written history of the archdiocese’s management of clergy abuse cases under its watch. New Orleans judge Juana Lombard signed the warrant on 22 April, and state police served it at a meeting with archdiocese officials three days later.

But the court clerk was not able to get a copy of the warrant until 30 April as the police prevented the clerk from accessing the document and claimed the record was part of an ongoing criminal investigation. The court provided it to WWL and the Guardian in response to a public records request.

-Ramon Antonio Vargas & David Hammer, The Guardian

Commentary:

“The gospels tell followers of Jesus to be meek, humble, generous, forgiving, loving, merciful, nonjudgmental, noncritical, and repentant. Christians must turn the other cheek when slapped, share their property and give it to those who would take it; always go the extra mile and accommodate those who would borrow from them. They must love their enemies and pray for their persecutors (Matthew 5:38-45; Luke 6:27-30; Luke 6;36-38). Jesus also forbids his followers from being angry with their brethren, on pain of judgment and hellfire, and urges them to reconcile and come to agreement with their adversaries (Matthew 5:23-25). He admonishes them to treat others as they would have others treat them (Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31), and he warns them against ‘taking up the sword’ (Matthew 26:52).

“But how many self-professed Christians actually behave according to gospel values? Such believers would never, for example, deny anyone food, shelter, or medical benefits, regardless of the needy party’s condition of birth, financial circumstances, race, immigration status, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation.  They would not look down on the poor and consider them unworthy of help. They would welcome immigrants, especially those seeking asylum, rather than imprisoning them. If their churches were wealthy, they would demand the sale of church assets to help fund care for the poor. They would not hoard weapons of war or attempt to overthrow honest elections. And they would laugh at the ‘Christian prosperity’ proponents, who according to the gospels have received their reward and will receive nothing more in Heaven.

“According to Jesus, people should view life on Earth as a trial venue, an audition for Heaven, in which their behavior will largely determine where they’ll spend the rest of eternity once they die.  Those who fill his stated criteria (and also happen to be gifted with God’s ‘grace’) will ascend to Heaven (John 12:25 and 12:28). Everyone else (i.e. most of humanity) will be tortured forever in Hell. Judging by widespread Christian behavior, this torture will include enduring the company of most of the self-professed Christians who ever lived” (Davis). 

And what do we make of the Catholic Church's history of ignoring priestly pedophilia and its cultural genocide and deaths of Indigenous children by Catholic clergy?  How can we reconcile with the Catholic Church's flagrant complicity and hypocrisy?  How can we forgive Christian ethnic cleansing and the divine Manifest Destiny? And what should we make of today's theocratic fascists, these white Christian Nationalistic misogynists and homophobes who are repressing women's rights and LTGBQ? And what about Christianity's archaic ideologies and indoctrination of a need for salvation perpetuated through irrational fear and guilt?

 -Glen Brown

Davis, Dan. “How to Be a Christian according to Jesus,” Free Inquiry, August/September 2023, Vol. 43 No. 5.

Hundreds of Catholic priests and church officials in the State of Illinois have been named in a new report detailing sexual abuse by clergy

 

The state's top prosecutor said 451 clergy in Illinois had sexually abused 1,997 children since 1950. The church had acknowledged only 103 individual abusers before the start of the investigation in 2018. Nearly every survivor interviewed struggled with mental health issues after being abused, the report said.

Several U.S. states launched investigations into Catholic sexual abuse after a Pennsylvania grand jury report in 2018 found that 300 priests had abused more than 1,000 children over a period of 70 years.

 

The nearly 700-page report released by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul on Tuesday includes dozens of harrowing stories of rape and sexual abuse, and details how allegations were ignored and abusers were shifted from church to church.

The archbishop of Chicago said he had not studied the new report in detail but took issue with how the statistics were presented, saying "it isn't fair or wise to focus only on the Catholic Church."

In a statement, Cardinal Blase J Cupich apologised to the survivors and pledged that the church would root out abusers and continue to investigate allegations.

"I am personally committed to applying the highest level of vigilance to these efforts and to further strengthening our safeguards against abuse," he said.

·       Sex abuse and the Catholic Church

·       US Diocese settles with abuse victims for $87.5m

Much of the report is dedicated to individual accounts of sexual abuse and lists of clergy accused of child sexual abuse.

One Chicago priest, Father Daniel McCormack, was called "one of the most infamous child abusers anywhere in Illinois." Complaints against McCormack go back to his training period as a priest in the late 1980s. Church officials later admitted that he should have been removed from a seminary and never allowed to become a priest.

Instead, McCormack was placed in several parishes and held teaching and coaching positions in several mostly African-American neighbourhoods on Chicago's west side throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

After numerous complaints and two arrests, he pleaded guilty to abusing five young boys and was sentenced to five years in prison in 2007. The report also includes testimony from survivors.

One survivor summed up the church's response to his reports of abuse by saying: "They had a chance to make things right, but they did everything wrong."

Victim advocacy group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (Snap) said the report demonstrated that church policies are "weak, vague, and rarely followed."

The group called for further state and local investigations, the renaming of all church buildings and schools that were named after abusers, and for memorials in honour of survivors.

"This is a vindication of the people who have been hurt, the survivors who have been whoa have been ignored and lied to," said Snap Chicago leader Larry Antonsen. "Hopefully it will give other survivors the courage to stand up and tell their stories."

BBC News

Maryland AG report into Archdiocese of Baltimore alleges 156 Catholic clergy members and others abused more than 600 children

 

A report from Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown released Wednesday alleges 156 Catholic clergy members and others abused at least 600 children over the course of more than six decades.

“From the 1940s through 2002, over a hundred priests and other Archdiocese personnel engaged in horrific and repeated abuse of the most vulnerable children in their communities while Archdiocese leadership looked the other way,” the report reads. “Time and again, members of the Church’s hierarchy resolutely refused to acknowledge allegations of child sexual abuse for as long as possible.”

The report lists descriptions of graphic sexual and physical abuse allegations: It includes stories of how some alleged abusers provided victims with alcohol and drugs and describes in vivid detail how they coerced and forced victims to perform sexual acts.

The report’s list of abusers includes clergy members, seminarians, deacons, teachers and other employees of the Archdiocese.

The investigation began in 2018 and has since received “hundreds of thousands of documents,” including treatment reports, personnel records, transfer reports and policies and procedures.

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office said more than 300 people contacted the office after it opened an email address and telephone hotline for people to report information about clergy abuse, and investigators interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses.

“Today certainly in Maryland is a day of reckoning and a day of accounting,” Brown said during a news conference Wednesday.

Brown said he met with survivors and advocates Wednesday morning to hear their stories.

“While each of those stories is unique, together, they reveal themes and behaviors typical of adults who abuse children, and those who enable that abuse by concealing it,” Brown said. “What was consistent throughout the stories was the absolute authority and power these abusive priests and the church leadership held over survivors, their families and their communities.”

Most of the abusers listed in the report are dead and no longer subject to prosecution, the attorney general said.

“While it may be too late for the survivors to see criminal justice served, we hope that exposing the Archdiocese’s transgressions to the fullest extent possible will bring some measure of accountability and perhaps encourage others to come forward,” Brown said.

Some victims waited to report their claims of abuse until later in life, according to the report. Because Maryland recognizes a statute of limitations defense in civil cases, “victims have no recourse if they are over the age of 38,” the report reads.

Some victims did not come forward until their parents had died to “spare them the pain of knowing about the abuse,” the report reads, while others never intended to tell but were persuaded to come forward with the help of others. Others repressed their memories and recollections of abuse emerged only many years later, according to the report.

The Archbishop of Baltimore apologized on behalf of the Archdiocese after allegations of abuse surfaced in the report.

“To all survivors, I offer my most earnest apology on behalf of the Archdiocese and pledge my continued solidarity and support for your healing. We hear you. We believe you and your courageous voices have made a difference,” Archbishop William E. Lori wrote in a statement Wednesday.

“The report details a reprehensible time in the history of this Archdiocese,” Lori added, and wrote it “will not be covered up, ignored or forgotten.”

The Archdiocese began making “radical changes” in the 1990s to “end this scourge,” Lori wrote. Instances of abuse have fallen every year and every decade since cases of abuse peaked during the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote, saying, “The Archdiocese is not the same organization it was.”

“Make no mistake, however: today’s strong record of protection and transparency does not excuse past failings that have led to the lasting spiritual, psychological and emotional harm victim-survivors have endured,” the Archbishop’s statement reads.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore has paid $13.2 million to 303 victims of abuse since the 1980s, according to the Archdiocese’s office.

The payments include money for both counseling and settlements, the Archdiocese’s executive director of communications, Christian Kendzierski, said in an email to CNN.

The report contains “a full accounting” of abuse in the Archdiocese and “details of repeated tortuous, terrorizing, depraved abuse.” It lists and details 156 abusers “determined to have been the subject of credible allegations of abuse.”

More than 600 children are known to have been abused by those 156 people, the report reads, but “the number is likely far higher.”

The report reveals the names of all but 10 of the 156 alleged abusers listed in the report.

Brown said those 10 names were obtained through the grand jury process and could not be disclosed without permission or a court order.

“I should emphasize that because they’re redacted today doesn’t mean they will always be redacted,” Brown said.

The report does not constitute criminal indictment, according to the attorney general.

The report recommends that Maryland amend the statute of limitations for civil actions involving child sex abuse.

“Our judicial system should provide a means for victims who have suffered these harms to seek damages from the people and institutions responsible for them,” the report reads.

Maryland’s Senate passed a bill in March that would repeal the state’s civil statute of limitations in certain civil actions relating to child sexual abuse. The bill is working its way through the House.

CNN’s Zenebou Sylla, Brynn Gingras, Sabrina Souza and Nicki Brown contributed to this report.

 

The Anderson Report: Child Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese and Dioceses in Illinois

 

“Over the last 20 years, numerous courageous survivors have spoken their truth and brought lawsuits related to the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church in Illinois. Survivors became plaintiffs in civil lawsuits and together with their attorneys were able to reveal secret church records using the civil litigation process.

“These lawsuits resulted in the release of identities and histories of sexually abusive individuals and the release of documents and records reflecting the knowledge of institutions that covered up the sexual abuse.

“The Anderson Report on Child Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese and Dioceses in Illinois contains the names of clerics, religious employees and seminarians associated with Catholic Dioceses in the State of Illinois, including those who were assigned within or working in Illinois, who have been accused of sexual misconduct with minors. These dioceses include the Archdiocese of Chicago and Dioceses of Belleville, Joliet, Peoria, Rockford and Springfield.

“The information in this Anderson Report is derived from publicly available sources, claims made by survivors to the dioceses and religious orders responsible for the offenders, and legal settlements made as a result of claims for child sexual abuse.

“While lawsuits were filed involving many of these alleged perpetrators, the vast majority of the claims against these individuals have been settled or have not been fully evaluated in a civil or criminal court. Accordingly, in most cases the allegations have not been proved or substantiated in a court of law.

“Consequently, unless otherwise indicated, all of the allegations should be considered just allegations and should not be considered proven or substantiated in a court of law. In some situations, the statute of limitations has expired preventing the merits of the allegations from being considered by a court of law.

“It is believed that the Dioceses in Illinois have not publicly made available the full histories and their knowledge of their sexually abusive agents and employees. The Anderson Report on Child Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese and Dioceses in Illinois is intended to raise awareness about the important issue of sexual abuse, provide the public with vital information including assignment histories, and provide awareness and healing to survivors of sexual abuse.

“Assignment histories are approximations and were compiled from the Official Catholic Directory, bishop accountability. org, statements attributed to Diocesan and Religious officials, Diocesan and Religious records, and media reports…

Child Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese and Dioceses in Illinois 

“The Anderson Report on Child Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese and Dioceses in Illinois is intended to be a chronology and analysis of the sexual abuse of children in Catholic institutions within the State of Illinois, including a discussion of how the highest Diocesan and Religious officials enabled the abusers and covered up crimes of sexual misconduct and abuse.

“The data reveal the horrifying scale of priests sexually assaulting minors to the present day. The data collected illustrate the patterns and practices of Diocesan and Religious officials, including orchestrating an institutional cover-up of enormous magnitude. Perhaps most shocking among the discoveries is that some perpetrators were intentionally transferred and retained in trusted positions with direct access to children even after they were known to sexually abuse children.

“Modern means of analysis and availability of data through the Internet, social media, and public information is exposing perpetrators who operated in these Dioceses, but until full transparency and accountability exist, children remain in grave danger.

“Historically, the Archdiocese and Dioceses in Illinois, like many other archdioceses and dioceses, knew of predator priests who posed a significant danger to children. The sexual abuse of children has long been a crime in Illinois.

“However, Diocesan and Religious Order officials chose and continue to keep these crimes hidden, allowing their priests continued and unfettered access to children. During the 1980s and 1990s, occasional bits of information about abuse within Catholic institutions surfaced, but the Catholic Church’s strict policy of secrecy kept important information and the full extent of the problem hidden from the public. This has continued despite mandated reporting laws…

2018 Preliminary Findings of the Investigation into Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse of Minors in Illinois

“In 2018, the State of Illinois Office of the Attorney General released preliminary findings of its investigation into Catholic Clergy sexual abuse. During the first 4 months of the investigation, the Office of Attorney General found:

• The scope of the problem of clergy sexual abuse of minors in Illinois is significantly more extensive than the Illinois Dioceses have reported.

• Illinois Dioceses disregarded survivors and failed to investigate allegations of clergy sexual abuse.

• Increased transparency is necessary for accountability and healing.

• The processes and practices put in place by the Illinois Dioceses to respond to clergy sexual abuse are flawed.

• The investigatory processes deployed by the Illinois Dioceses fail to prioritize the survivor and provide healing.

• Illinois Dioceses will not resolve the clergy sexual abuse crisis on their own.

“The Office of Attorney General’s review determined that the Illinois Dioceses had received allegations related to sexual abuse for approximately 690 clergy but had only publicly identified 185 clergy as being ‘credibly’ accused of sexual abuse.

“Jeff Anderson & Associates believes that there are likely hundreds of alleged perpetrators within the Dioceses and religious orders in Illinois whose names have never been made public. The fight for information and the names of those alleged perpetrators continues.

The Danger of Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church of Illinois Today

“The danger of sexual abuse in Illinois is clearly a problem of today, not just the past. This will continue to be a danger until the identities and histories of sexually abusive clerics, religious employees and seminarians are made public…”

For the list of their names and other details, click here: ANDERSON REPORT.pdf (go.com)

Pope Benedict faulted over sex abuse claims: New report is just one chapter in his – and Catholic Church’s – fraught record

 

An in-depth report released last week alleges that former Pope Benedict XVI allowed four abusive priests in Munich to remain in ministry. The pope, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, led the German archdiocese from 1977 to 1982. The 1,900-page audit was commissioned by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising but conducted by independent investigators. It covers the period from 1945 to 2019 and lists 235 alleged clergy who were perpetrators of sexual abuse and at least 497 minors who were victims.

Given Benedict’s status – he was pope from 2005 to 2013, until his historic resignation due to ill health – the news has put additional scrutiny on top leaders’ roles in allowing abusers to go unpunished. It also raises the classic questions of what Benedict knew, and when. As a journalist, I covered Ratzinger in Rome in the 1980s and wrote a biography of him in 2006. Today, as director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, I see this episode as an opportunity to understand the church’s fitful evolution on dealing with abuse.

Influential role

After Ratzinger left Munich in 1982, he came to Rome to serve as Pope John Paul II’s top defender of doctrine. For 23 years he led the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a body tasked with defending Catholic teaching, and arguably the most influential department in the Vatican.

As head, Ratzinger had a say in developing the church’s response to the increasingly public sex abuse crisis. John Paul consulted Ratzinger on important decisions, and major documents from other departments at the Vatican required his approval, or imprimatur, before they could be published.

Ratzinger’s initial responses to abuse cases mirrored his record in Munich. In one case in 1985, for example, he rejected an appeal to defrock, or “laicize,” an American priest who sexually abused children, even though the priest himself, as well as the bishop, requested it.

One of Ratzinger’s successors at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, defended his mentor by arguing that in the 1970s and 1980s, neither the church nor society at large understood child sex abuse properly. “It was thought that therapy could resolve the problem. Today we know that this is useless for these criminals,” he said after the release of the Munich report.

‘Weakness of faith’

Another key factor many critics blame for the hierarchy’s resistance to punishing clergy is an attitude called “clericalism,” or treating priests as superior. The late Rev. Donald Cozzens, a Cleveland priest, seminary director and psychologist who published a book on the priesthood in 2000, defined clericalism as an attitude of “privilege and entitlement” among clergy, elites who “think they’re unlike the rest of the faithful.”

Ratzinger and many other church leaders preferred to view the problem as a spiritual one. “I think the essential point is a weakness of faith,” Ratzinger insisted in 2003. He also blamed the secular world, particularly what he called the “unprecedented” moral breakdown of the 1960s and 1970s, and the acceptance of homosexuality.

Two studies by professors at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice showed that abuse did start to spike in the 1960s and declined sharply in the 1980s. But the researchers note that almost 44% of accused abusers were ordained before 1960 and dismiss the notion that gay men are to blame. Moreover, historians have often pointed out that pedophilia and other sexual abuses by clergy are nothing new but date back to at least the 11th century.

When The Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” series finally broke the scandal wide open in January 2002, American bishops sought to institute a zero-tolerance policy for abusers and to hold bishops who covered up accountable. The Vatican pushed back, though the U.S. bishops were able to adopt a relatively strong system laying out procedures for removing accused priests.

Ratzinger also continued to minimize the extent of the scandal, arguing in November 2002 that “less than one percent” of priests were guilty of abuse and blaming the media for “a planned campaign” to “discredit the church.” The real figure was over 4% nationally.

A sudden shift

The previous year, however, Ratzinger had persuaded John Paul to let his office take charge of all abuse cases worldwide to expedite trials and defrock the guilty. The ensuing flood of cases seemed to have an effect: When John Paul died in April 2005 and Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI, he moved quickly to begin laicizing hundreds of abusers. He also apologized to victims and became the first pope ever to meet face to face with clergy abuse victims. This was a sea change for the church, and for Benedict.

But it went only so far. Though Benedict publicly dismissed a bishop whom he considered too liberal, he was not as assertive in taking action against bishops suspected of covering up abuse or being abusers themselves. A key example is the case of Theodore McCarrick, a former Washington, D.C., cardinal.

Allegations that McCarrick had abused children emerged in July 2018 and led to an investigation that showed that Benedict knew of other accusations against McCarrick of sexual misconduct with adults but took no public action.

After Francis was elected pope in 2013, he stripped McCarrick of his cardinal’s title and defrocked him. McCarrick has pleaded not guilty to charges of sexually assaulting a teenager in the 1970s. Francis also began firing other bishops for covering for abusers and started to institute a system of accountability.

Benedict is nearing the end of his life, living in seclusion in a quiet monastery inside the Vatican walls. Beyond the damage to his reputation, he likely won’t face sanctions for his actions decades ago in Munich. But this episode helps illustrate how the Catholic Church got to this point and what remains to be done. And it may sway cardinals in the next conclave to choose a pope who has a stronger record on abuse.   

David Gibson is the director for the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University.  The article was published in The Conversation. For more information about the report, click here: Report on sexual abuse in German diocese faults retired pope | AP News