Chicago archdiocese hid decades of child sex abuse

[No Elephants]

CHICAGO (AP) -- Top leaders at the Archdiocese of Chicago helped hide the sexual abuse of children as they struggled to contain a growing crisis, according to thousands of pages of internal documents that raise new questions about how Cardinal Francis George handled the allegations even after the church adopted reforms.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CHURCH_ABUSE_CHICAGO?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-01-21-20-55-35


200 victims are represented by one lawyer. Meanwhile, the Cardinal has written a letter to the parishes apologizing.


This is instructive of what it takes for a powerful institution finally to even begin to change: disgrace, lawsuit after lawsuit, kicks in the wallet, both by losing lawsuits and by lost donations.

It is not easy. One of the young Massachusetts victims commmitted suicide soon after the lawsuit on behalf of him and a couple of hundred other victims of some Massachusetts clergy, which I interpret as an indication of, in part, the toll suing took on him (obviously, the original abuse was the core problem. I am just observing that the stress of the suit and raking everything up again seem to be the last straw for him).

[Enthusiast]

1. What a sad history.

Thanks.