SEATTLE (WA)
Seattle Times
By Janet I. Tu
Seattle Times staff reporter
Three years after the Roman Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal broke open, more than 1,000 accusers around the country came forward last year, 31 of them in the Seattle Archdiocese.
The numbers were released yesterday with the results of a nationwide audit into whether dioceses were complying with a 2002 policy established by the nation's bishops to protect minors from sexual abuse.
The audits, conducted on-site by teams of mainly former FBI agents, found that 187 of the nation's 195 dioceses, including Seattle, Yakima and Spokane, had complied with the new policies.
In the Seattle Archdiocese, the 31 new claims accused 10 priests of sexual abuse dating from 1955 to the mid-1980s. Those priests are either deceased, defrocked or permanently removed from ministry; one is on administrative leave pending action by the Vatican, archdiocese officials said.
Posted by kshaw at February 19, 2005 06:22 AM