Scandal of child sexual abuse breaks in Illinois

A new episode of child sexual abuse by clergymen broke recently in the Midwest US state of Illinois after State Attorney General Kwame Raoul revealed that 1,997 children have been molested by 451 clerics in six catholic dioceses across the state over seven decades.

In a press conference held on May 23 in Chicago, Raoul said that a 25-member staff of his staff conducted, over four and a half years, an investigation into sexual attacks on minors, noting that the probe was launched in the second half of 2018 after a Pennsylvania grand jury report found that more than 1,000 children were sexually assaulted by 300 Catholic clerics in the commonwealth over 70 years.

Raoul added that his office’s 700-page report covers the six dioceses of Chicago, Belleville, Joliet, Peoria, Rockford and Springfield, uncovering the names and information of the religious perpetrators through publishing testimonies by victims.

“These perpetrators may never be held accountable in a court of law, but by naming them here, the intention is to provide a public accounting and a measure of healing to survivors who have long suffered in silence,” he said in a press conference. The report also put forth recommendations regarding the dioceses’ policies and how they deal with these crimes.

He noted that his office received, over this course of the investigation, more than 600 confidential contacts from survivors, besides reviewing more than 100,000 pages held by the dioceses. He added that before conducting the investigation, the dioceses listed 103 substantiated sex child abuses.

Although Raoul said that leaders of the dioceses helped the office members investigate this matter, Archbishop of Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich voiced their “concerns” about the data provided in “a misleading way” in the attorney general’s report.

In a statement, Cupich said that “149 still ‘undisclosed’ men are mostly religious order members who are not on our site; they are not undisclosed, and they are under the supervision and report to their respective order. AG [Attorney General] himself distinguished between dioceses and religious orders, saying ‘this was an investigation of the dioceses, not the orders,’ recognizing they are different. However, their totals include both.”

“The cardinal’s statements, including that he needs information on how our investigators substantiated the claims, are particularly perplexing, because many of those 125 names – 62 in fact – came directly from an archdiocese spreadsheet entitled ‘Religious Order Clerics With a Substantiated Allegation of Sexual Abuse of Minors Who Served within the Archdiocese of Chicago’,” Raoul responded in a statement released on May 26.

“At best, the cardinal’s claims of being blindsided are misleading. At worst, they are more of the same, a continuation of the church’s decades-long pattern of turning a blind eye and covering up allegations of child sex abuse to the detriment of survivors. We released this report to give a voice to survivors and to shine light on the church officials who covered up child sex abuse in the church, allowing child sex predators to continue to abuse children who trusted them,” he continued.

3,000 lawsuits against California clerics

A total of 3,000 lawsuits have been filed against Catholic churches in California for accusations of child sexual abuse. The cases were filed after California passed a law in 2019 allowing victims a three-year window to sue their abusers, Sight Magazine reported.

Some churches announced their bankruptcy as they could not deal with costs of hundreds of lawsuits against them.

Recently, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) accused officials from Rockford’s Cathedral of hiding names of five molesting clerics who are “credibly accused” on its list. SNAP members gathered outside the cathedral, calling for putting the names on the Cathedral’s list, reported My State Line on May 29.