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A new report by the attorney general of Illinois covering decades names more than 450 credibly accused sexual abusers, including priests and lay religious brothers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More than 450 credibly accused child sex abusers have ministered in the Catholic Church in Illinois over almost seven decades, the office of the state\u2019s attorney general, Kwame Raoul, said Tuesday in an investigative report. That is more than four times the number that the church had publicly disclosed before 2018, when the state began its investigation.<\/p>\n
The 696-page report found that clergy members and lay religious brothers had abused at least 1,997 children since 1950 in the state\u2019s six dioceses, including the prominent Archdiocese of Chicago.<\/p>\n
The report adds 149 names to lists of child sex abusers whom the dioceses themselves had publicly identified before or during the investigation. That brings the total number of identified abusers to 451, the report says. The additional names were supplied by victims who came forward and shared their accounts with investigators, who then followed up on their accounts. Investigators also reviewed more than 100,000 pages of files held by the dioceses, and interviewed church leaders and their representatives. The 149 new names are religious brothers, who are accountable primarily to independent religious orders rather than to local dioceses and bishops.<\/p>\n
One case among many documented in the report involves Thomas Francis Kelly, a priest who abused more than 15 boys ranging in age from 11 to 17 in several parishes in the 1960s and 1970s. A victim contacted the attorney general\u2019s investigators to describe being singled out by Father Kelly as an 11-year-old altar server. The priest invited the boy to drive-in movies and to spend the night in the rectory, where the priest offered him beer. The boy awoke in the night to find Father Kelly performing oral sex on him, the report says.<\/p>\n
The priest\u2019s tactics were well enough known that they became a topic of conversation among the victim\u2019s peers. Two other victims of Father Kelly shared similar experiences with investigators. The archdiocese moved the priest from parish to parish, the attorney general\u2019s report notes. The priest died in 1990.<\/p>\n
Background: Illinois is the latest state to detail decades of abuse.
Attorneys general and grand juries in a number of states have investigated sexual abuse in the church, including an investigation into the Archdiocese of Baltimore that was released last month. The many investigations were inspired by a sweeping report in 2018 on six dioceses in Pennsylvania, which stunned Catholics across the country.<\/p>\n
The Illinois report was initiated by Lisa Madigan, Mr. Raoul\u2019s predecessor as attorney general, who identified early in her investigation a significant gap between the number of clergy members who had been credibly accused and the much smaller number disclosed by the church. \u201cThe number of allegations above what was already public is shocking,\u201d she told The New York Times in 2018.<\/p>\n
Why It Matters: Questions about abuse by Illinois clergy members have lingered for years.
The effects of the clerical sex abuse crisis have rippled through the Catholic Church in the United States for decades, and burst into public view 20 years ago when the The Boston Globe documented a sprawling cover-up of abuse in church settings.<\/p>\n
The Catholic Conference of Illinois estimates that Catholics make up about 27 percent of the state\u2019s population, above the national average for states.<\/p>\n
In the early 1990s, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago led a pioneering commission on sexual abuse in church settings, establishing a board made up mainly of lay people to evaluate accusations of abuse against clergy members. The attorney general\u2019s report calls the Chicago archdiocese \u201ca leader in the new era of handling abuse claims,\u201d with a policy of removing credibly accused clergy members from ministry rather than shuffling them to new posts. But the report also documents how the archdiocese sometimes failed to act on its own recommendations.<\/p>\n
In advance of the release of the attorney general\u2019s report, the state\u2019s six Catholic dioceses released a statement last week on their approach to allegations of sexual abuse of minors. Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, said in the statement that the church in Illinois \u201chas been at the forefront of dealing with sexual abuse of minors for many years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis report clearly tells us that no one knew more about abuse, and no one did less about it, than these dioceses themselves,\u201d said Mike McDonnell, a spokesman for SNAP, an advocacy group for victims of clerical sexual abuse.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s Next: Prosecutions appear unlikely in many of the cases described.
Most of the abuse documented in the report happened decades ago. The report acknowledges that criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits will be impossible for many victims, because of statutes of limitations and the fact that the majority of the perpetrators have died.
Some states, including California and New York, have enacted a \u201clook-back window\u201d allowing victims of child sex abuse to bring civil claims that would otherwise be barred by statutes of limitations, but Illinois is not among them.<\/p>\n
The report was intended to provide \u201cpublic accountability and a measure of healing to survivors who have long suffered in silence,\u201d Mr. Raoul said at a news conference Tuesday morning. He said the dioceses had fulfilled their pledges to cooperate fully with the investigation.<\/p>\n
Read the full article at The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 696-page report found that clergy members and lay religious brothers had abused at least 1,997 children since 1950 in the state\u2019s six dioceses, including the prominent Archdiocese of Chicago. The U.S. Virgin Islands is home to some of the most gorgeous beaches in the world. Each year hundreds of cruise ships come in and out of its harbors, and tourists enjoy a plethora of activities under the Caribbean sun. One of the most frequently visited islands is the island of St. Thomas. Just to the southeast of the popular paradise lies the small island of Little St. James. Though little<\/em> is heralded in its name, the island is home to some big<\/em> problems.<\/p>\n In 1998, the 75-acre island of Little St. James was purchased for $7.95 million by an incredibly wealthy businessman by the name of Jeffrey Epstein. The island has a villa-style compound, library, cinema, boathouse, and several cabanas. It also has a large mansion and a unique structure that resembles a temple. Epstein was not only in the process of building new<\/em> structures on the island; he was also the reason Little St. James was given a new<\/em> name: Pedophile Island.<\/p>\n In 2008, Epstein plead guilty to a charge of prostitution in the state of Florida. He completed a 13-month jail sentence for the crime. In 2010, he registered as a sex offender in the Virgin Islands. However, registering as a sex offender did not keep Epstein from engaging in heinous criminal activity. For several years, Epstein used the island of Little St. James as a \u201chideaway\u201d to rape and traffic dozens of women and girls. Some girls appeared to be as young as 11 or 12 years old. In 2016, Epstein purchased the Great St. James, an island nearby Little St. James, to prevent people from monitoring his activities on Little St. James and to prevent his survivors from escaping.<\/p>\n In 2018, Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges stemming from the trafficking of women and girls in New York and Florida between 2002 to 2005. He plead not guilty to the charges. In August 2019, he hung himself in a Manhattan jail while the charges were pending.<\/p>\n In January 2020, the U.S. Virgin Islands sued Epstein\u2019s estate for the rape and trafficking of women and girls that occurred on Little St. James. The Complaint alleged that Epstein\u2019s misconduct spanned from 2001 to 2018. The lawsuit seeks civil penalties and assets from Epstein\u2019s $577.7 million estate, including the forfeiture of Little St. James and Great St. James.<\/p>\n The Virgin Island\u2019s lawsuit, however, has complicated matters for some of Epstein\u2019s survivors who are seeking civil remedies. Epstein\u2019s estate has set up a fund to compensate survivors, but when the Virgin Islands\u2019 lawsuit was commenced, it froze the estate\u2019s assets. Thus, the litigation has caused delays in allowing the fund to move forward. While the estate believes a plan for putting the fund into effect should occur by June 15, many survivors are skeptical. The Virgin Islands have yet to confirm resolution of any matters that have been in dispute.<\/p>\n Because of Epstein\u2019s suicide, his survivors missed the opportunity to see him brought to justice for criminal charges. They should not miss that opportunity for civil recourse. The qualified attorneys at Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis, and Overholtz represent survivors of sexual abuse. Please contact us to receive more information.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sources:<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/jeffrey-epstein-orgy-island-tourist-attraction-photos-2019-8#jeffrey-epstein-purchased-little-st-james-a-roughly-75-acre-private-island-in-the-virgin-islands-in-1998-for-795-million-2<\/a><\/p>\n
\nThe Archdiocese of Baltimore recently published a comprehensive, damning list of clergy members accused of child sexual abuse. The list, which was released on the Archdiocese’s website, includes more than 150 names of individuals who were accused of abuse between 1939 and 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7398,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"