A scathing report from Attorney General Lisa Madigan finds the number of Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse against children in Illinois is much higher than previously acknowledged.Yesterday's Download from Church Militant addressed this story.The report said accusations have been leveled against 690 priests, while Catholic officials have publicly identified only 185 clergy with credible allegations against them.
. . . Although the report says that “Clergy sexual abuse of minors in Illinois is significantly more extensive than the Illinois Dioceses previously reported,” it does not estimate how many of the allegations against the 690 clergy should have been deemed credible. Some of the allegations go back decades.
The discussion raises one possible issue. At about 3:40, it quotes the Archdiocese of Chicago's reply, "Starting in 2002, we have reported all allegations of child sexual abuse to civil authorities, and at that time, we reported all historical allegations."
However, the question is what "child sexual abuse" means here. The Pennsylvania grand jury report, as well as the well-publicized allegations against McCarrick, refer to abuse of those below the age of consent, 18, and not just "children". It's plain that the Cupich agenda is to restrict the discussion to children and reiterate that policies to "protect the children" are in place.
But this leaves out the issue of sexual harassment against teens and adult seminarians over the age of consent, an issue corporations in particular have had to address since the 1970s, but which the Church seems reluctant to confront. This probably accounts for the discrepancy, but it will be a struggle to get Cupich and others to acknowledge the real issues.
I do find one encouraging aspect to the Church Militant discussion: the consensus seems to be that the gay problem, as well as the actual abuse of teens and adults, is limited more to chanceries and seminaries, and it's much less common in parishes. This is consonant with my impression of our parish clergy, as well as to remarks by Fr Schmitz and others on YouTube that they've never actually seen the sort of conduct that's reported by state authorities. This strikes me as credible.
