The document, which has been around since 2007, was regularly fed by a Church employee, but has long remained secret. It lists hundreds of sexual assaults.
Officials from America’s main Protestant church, the Southern Baptist Convention, released a 205-page document Thursday (May 26) listing its members who have been accused of sexual violence.
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The publication of this list comes a few days after that of an independent investigation report, which concluded that the Church had, for years, practiced obstruction and concealment vis-à-vis the victims of sexual assaults. “The list is made public for the first time and is an initial, but important step in the fight against the scourge of sexual violence and the implementation of reform in the Conventionthe Southern Baptist Convention said in a statement.
The document, which has been around since 2007, was regularly fed by a Church employee, but has long remained secret. Despite the existence of this list, officials appear to have done nothing to ensure that those named no longer hold important positions, according to the report. The list includes hundreds of sexual assaults, often leading to convictions. In some cases, suspects’ names or other details are obscured. The names of the victims are not listed, but their ages are often given. Some of the reported sexual assaults concern children aged five.
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“Protecting the Most Vulnerable”
According to the report published on Sunday, alleged victims of sexual assaults and those who have sought to expose these facts within the Church have come up against for almost two decades “resistance, obstruction and even outright hostilityfrom members of the executive committee. On Thursday, the Southern Baptist Convention said it hopes that “churches would proactively use this list to protect and care for the most vulnerable among us“.
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This scandal, involving nearly 400 pastors, volunteers and educators over two decades, and more than 700 victims, was brought to light in 2019 thanks to the investigations of two Texas daily newspapers, the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News. The Southern Baptist Convention, with a network of thousands of churches, has over fifteen million members, mostly in the southern United States.
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