Crisis in the Catholic Church – Abuses in the Church: This is how other countries react – Culture

Switzerland has taken its time with an independent study on sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. This is shown by comparison with other countries such as the USA.

2002 revealed a Team of journalists from the Boston Globe a system of cover-ups and transfers of priests in the Archdiocese of Boston. They were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for their research.

Since then, sexual abuse by clerics, religious and church employees of the Catholic Church has been present in the public debate. However, work on the topic began earlier:

USA: 1985 will be the “Doyle Report” published. In it, two priests and a lawyer discovered that the Archdiocese of Boston had spent $10 million to cover up clergy sexual abuse cases. The authors of the report made it clear that a transparent processing was required in order to continue to be credible as a church.

In 2004, an internal church report on the crisis in the Catholic Church in the USA and one were published independent study, which identified 10,667 possible cases of sexual abuse and 4,392 suspects between 1950 and 2002. Lawyers in particular drove the investigation forward.

Ireland: In 1995, the case of a priest who sexually abused 90 children over a period of years sparked public outrage. In 1997, the Irish government accepted responsibility for systematic abuses due to the close ties between church and state in Ireland.

Reports from Catholic children’s homes are particularly well known. In 2002, under pressure from state officials, an official investigation was conducted. Further investigations into dioceses and homes followed.

Germany: In 2002, the German bishops responded to the scandals in the USA and Ireland: They issued guidelines on how to deal with sexual abuse of minors. But it was only after the revelations at the Canisius College in Berlin that the dioceses checked their archives and personnel files.

2014 became one independent study commissioned. For the years 1946 to 2014, 1,670 suspects were identified and 3,677 affected people were found. Individual dioceses also commissioned diocesan-specific studies.

France: In 2016, several cases of abuse became known. The Archbishop of Lyon, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, who is said to have covered up attacks by the priest Bernard Preynat, came into focus.

Legend:

As of 2016, the then Cardinal Philippe Barbarin was at the center of the abuse scandal in France.

IMAGO / PanoramiC

After the “Preynat-Barbarin affair” was announced, the bishops and the conference of religious communities announced a 2018 independent study in order. It talks about around 330,000 people affected and 2,900 to 3,200 accused.

Portugal: In 2021, the bishops commissioned an independent study, which was published this year. Since 1950, there are said to have been more than 4,800 cases of sexual abuse by clergy and church employees.

Italy: In 2022, the affected people’s organization “Rete l’ABUSO” published a report. An independent study is missing.

Poland: There is hardly any social discussion of the topic. To date, there has been no large-scale independent study.

Spain: In Spain there is still no systematic processing. The Catholic Church refuses, but the media draws attention to cases of sexual abuse. The newspaper “El Pais” has been collecting them since 2018 and comes to almost 1,000 cases.