Category
Sexual abuse
Documented sexual abuse and institutional cover-up.
Filed
9 entriesPennsylvania Grand Jury Report on Clergy Abuse
A two-year statewide investigating grand jury in Pennsylvania identified more than 300 credibly accused priests and over 1,000 child victims across six Catholic dioceses, naming each priest individually in the public record.
FILED · 2002 · CATHOLIC · SEXUALThe Boston Globe Spotlight Investigation
A six-month investigative project exposed systematic sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in the Archdiocese of Boston and the institutional cover-up that protected the abusers for decades.
FILED · 2000–2019 · BAPTIST · SEXUALThe Southern Baptist Convention Abuse Crisis
A 2022 independent investigation commissioned by the Southern Baptist Convention itself established that senior denominational leaders had for two decades systematically ignored, belittled, and intimidated survivors of sexual abuse while maintaining a secret internal list of credibly accused ministers.
FILED · 1978–2024 · ANGLICAN · SEXUALThe Makin Review and the John Smyth Abuse Cover-up
A November 2024 independent review established that the Church of England's senior leadership had known of barrister John Smyth's serial abuse of boys at conservative-evangelical Iwerne camps since 2013 and had failed to act; Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigned five days after publication.
FILED · 1950–2020 · CATHOLIC · SEXUALCIASE — The Sauvé Commission on French Catholic Abuse
A three-year independent commission established by the French Catholic episcopate estimated in October 2021 that approximately 216,000 minors had been sexually abused by clergy in France between 1950 and 2020, with an additional ~114,000 abused by lay personnel of Catholic institutions.
FILED · 1950–2023 · CATHOLIC · SEXUALJean Vanier and the L'Arche Disclosures
A 2020 internal investigation commissioned by L'Arche International established that its founder, the celebrated Catholic spiritual writer Jean Vanier, had sexually abused at least six women under his spiritual direction; a 2023 follow-up study documented at least 25 victims and revealed Vanier's lifelong concealment of L'Arche's origins in the abusive theology of his mentor Père Thomas Philippe.
FILED · 1950–2015 · JW · SEXUALJehovah's Witnesses — Australian Royal Commission Findings
The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse established in 2015 that Watchtower's internal records identified 1,006 alleged perpetrators of child sexual abuse within Jehovah's Witnesses congregations over six decades, none of whom had been reported to police.
FILED · 1944–2006 · CATHOLIC · SEXUALMarcial Maciel and the Legionaries of Christ
The Mexican Catholic priest Marcial Maciel Degollado founded the Legionaries of Christ in 1941, served as its director until 2005, and over six decades sexually abused at least sixty seminarians and an unknown number of other minors, fathered at least six children by at least two women, and embezzled substantial sums; Benedict XVI imposed canonical sanctions on him in May 2006.
FILED · 1930–2025 · CATHOLIC · SEXUALTheodore McCarrick — Vatican Report and Laicization
Theodore Edgar McCarrick, formerly Cardinal Archbishop of Washington, was laicized by Pope Francis on 16 February 2019 — the first US cardinal so laicized — following the substantiation of decades of sexual misconduct allegations; a 449-page Vatican-commissioned report published November 2020 documented the institutional failure to act.
