TORONTO (ONTARIO, CANADA)
The Catholic Register
October 29, 2020
Ottawa – The promise to release a detailed public list of all Canadian Jesuits who have been “credibly accused” of sex abuse has been delayed until at least the spring.
The Jesuits of Canada announced in December 2019 they would do what no other Canadian Catholic Church organization has done — release the names of priests “credibly accused” of abusing minors. It is a move clergy abuse survivor groups in Canada and around the world have been demanding for years. The Jesuits had planned to publish a comprehensive list by January.
Those plans, however, have been adversely impacted by the ongoing health crisis.
In a statement forwarded to Canadian Catholic News, the Jesuits’ director of communications Jose Sanchez said anti-COVID precautions have slowed the pace of reviewing historic cases and it may be well into 2021 before the results can finally be made public.
“The auditors have consolidated, digitized, reviewed and indexed a large part of the delegate, legal and personnel files of most Jesuits, particularly those that were the subject of complaints between 1950 and the present,” the statement said.
“Although they have made significant progress, the reality that our archives were closed for most of the spring and summer due to the COVID-19 pandemic has made it difficult to process the final portion of these records. By the end of this month, independent auditors should have completed the digitization of all files and an information base to assist in the creation of a list. We estimate that both a list and the final report will be ready in the spring of 2021.”
Last December the Jesuits announced the order had hired King International Advisory Group to review all personnel and provincial files going back to 1950.
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