Sex Abuse Crisis: EDITORIAL: Priest pedophilia crisis grows

The United States -

THE U.S. CATHOLIC bishops are presiding over a scandal.

Three years ago, we took notice of a relatively new phenomenon in society: growing numbers of aggrieved and frustrated parents who were going to court with charges their children had been sexually abused by Catholic priests. We investigated and six months later published several articles on priestly pedophilia, an issue that has festered quietly in the church for more time than most would care to think (NCR June 7, 1985).

Looking into the matter, we learned of several dozen cases nationwide. As unsettling as these cases were, within them we often found something even more disturbing, a pattern of institutional cover-up. We found bishops far more focused on protecting the image of their diocese than on aiding the pedophilia victims. We found bishops who failed to remove known molesters from active church ministry and, instead, transferred them to locations where they continued their ways.

Read the article at The National Catholic Reporter dated January 8, 1988