Church in the World

Day of reckoning on abuse scandal

United States

The clerical sexual-abuse scandal was the gravest event in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States, the bishop responsible for child protection has said.

Five years after revelations of pervasive clerical sexual abuse devastated the American Church, Bishop Gregory M. Aymond, head of the Diocese of Austin and chairman of the Bishops' Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People, told an audience at Georgetown University last month that the Church had undergone an agonising purification. It had also learnt many lessons, but would still confront grave moral challenges before it could fully heal. Looking back at the eruption of accusations that surfaced in 2002, Bishop Aymond said that the scandal was "our 9/11".

"This was the most painful time in the history of the Church in this country," he continued. His talk focused on the lessons the bishops had gleaned from the disaster, such as the fact that "often rehabilitation of a sex offender may not be possible", as well as the actions they had taken towards reconciliation and the challenges they still hoped to overcome. "We have learned much, we have done a lot, but we have a lot more to do," he said.

Nearly every diocese in the country was affected by the abuse scandals, and five have been bankrupted. The lives of more than 9,000 children have been shattered. The Church has paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits and settlements, and many dioceses have been forced to sell their assets or close parishes to compensate. Bishop Aymond stressed over and over that the victims had suffered most horrifically, and he cautioned against losing their stories among the staggering statistics. In the years he had been examining the abuse cases, he said, "I have never, ever, found two stories that were they same, or seen two hearts that were broken in the same way."

Polls suggest that faith in the Church has largely recovered in America since the height of the scandal, and that the exodus of parishioners that many had feared never occurred.