Some 451 members of the clergy have committed pedophile acts on nearly 2,000 minors in Illinois since the 1950s, far more than the Church admitted until then, revealed this Tuesday May 23 the attorney general of this state. of the North American.
His services had opened an investigation into predatory priests in 2018, after the publication of a report on the Church of Pennsylvania which had caused shock waves in the United States, and published their conclusions on Tuesday in a document of almost 700 pages.
“Prior to this investigation, the Catholic dioceses of Illinois had made public a list of 130 proven pedophiles. By comparison, this report reveals the names and detailed information of 451 priests and brothers who abused at least 1,997 children.”writes prosecutor Kwame Raoul in the preamble.
These attackers, many of whom died, “may never be brought to account in court, but by appointing them, we want to bring transparency and a little peace of mind to the victims who have long suffered in silence”he adds.
In a preliminary report, her predecessor Lisa Madigan had already indicated that she had been notified “accusations against at least 500 priests” who were not on the list published by the six state dioceses. The work of his successor has refined the count.
Priests transferred to other dioceses
His report contains many horrifying testimonies, including from a woman who, when she was ten, was repeatedly raped by a priest employed as a math teacher in a Catholic school; or men, assaulted in childhood, who then struggled for years with suicidal thoughts and addictive behavior.
He also insists on the responsibility of the hierarchy which, for a long time, contented itself with transferring to other dioceses the priests accused of pedocrime, without denouncing them.
The American Catholic Church was shaken by a series of articles in the Boston Globe in 2002 on abuses committed by clergy in this eastern city. These revelations, popularized in the film “Spotlight”, have freed the voices of victims throughout the country.
Since then, many priests have been expelled from the clergy and prosecuted. The Church has also paid large sums to compensate the victims.
In 2018, the Pennsylvania prosecutor’s office dealt a new blow to the Church by detailing the sexual assaults perpetrated by more than 300 priests on a thousand children over several decades.
In the process, several states conducted comparable surveys. In April, Maryland published a list of 150 predatory priests guilty of child crimes. “horrible and repeated” on at least 600 children from the 1940s to 2002.
2023-05-24 06:25:18
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