Free Malaysia Today
AFP | July 19, 2017
Since 2010, hundreds of cases of sex abuse against children or adolescents in religious institutions have emerged.
PARIS: The Roman Catholic Church faces fresh charges of child abuse, with an investigator saying Tuesday that at least 547 boys at a German choir school suffered sexual or physical abuse.
Here is a rundown of other cases that have rocked the Church in recent years.
Germany
Since 2010, hundreds of cases of sex abuse against children or adolescents in religious institutions have emerged.
The most high-profile ones involve Jesuit-run Canisius college in Berlin, and the most recent revelation of the choir in Ratisbonne, southern Germany, where at least 547 children were victims of abuse, including rapes, between 1945 and the early 1990s.
Australia
A public enquiry begun in 2013 found that 4,440 presumed cases of paedophilia had been reported to authorities at the Catholic Church in Australia. Seven percent of priests were presumed to have committed paedophilic acts, but the probe was not followed by official action.
The third highest member of the Vatican hierarchy, Australian Cardinal George Pell, was charged in June 2017 for historical sexual offences, but no details were provided.
In February 2016, Pell had testified via video-link before an Australian commission probing abuse, and admitted that the Church “mucked up” in dealing with paedophile priests in the state of Victoria.
Canada
In the late 1980s, a huge scandal broke out regarding the mistreatment of children at an orphanage in Newfoundland in the 1950s-60s.
Church officials were accused of failing to report cases of paedophilia.
United States
Between 1950 and 2013, the Catholic Church in the US received 17,000 complaints from people who said they had suffered sexual abuse from 6,400 clerics between 1950 and 1980.
In 2012, specialists in contact with the Vatican mooted the figure of 100,000 cases of child sex abuse in the US.
Faced with accusations concerning four percent of its priests, the US church has already spent several billion dollars in legal fees.
Among the senior church members forced to resign for protecting paedophile priests were Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston, Roger Mahony in Los Angeles, Robert Finn in Kansas City, and John Clayton Nienstedt in Minnesota.
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