Yet again, we have learned that not even clergy can escape demons.
The past month has featured troubling allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of a former priest in Louisiana, a pastor in Ohio and a former pastor in North Carolina. The accused have all been arrested and criminal proceedings have begun.
In Louisiana, Mark Ford was arrested and extradited for sexual abuse against a minor beginning around 2004 and continuing to at least 2023. In Ohio, Silas H. Shelton was charged with child rape. And in North Carolina (pending extradition from Florida), Luis Sosa was charged with human trafficking and other sexual abuse charges related to minors.
And just this week, the Anglican Church in North America was roiled by accusations of workplace sexual misconduct against its leader, Archbishop Stephen Wood.
This comes right on the heels of the release of the second report of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, a commission established in 2014 by Pope Francis in response to the then-widespread global revelations of clerical sexual abuse and institutional cover-ups within the Catholic Church.
The most recent report found that, while some reforms and polices have been introduced to curb sexual abuse, many leaders are still resisting meaningful change, particularly outside of Western countries. It also found a persistent lack of accountability for church leaders, poor vetting of church staff and retaliation for whistleblowers, among other things.
The known cases of sexual abuse are damning. One report identified roughly 11,000 allegations against 4,392 priests in the United States between 1950 and 2002. And that number pales in comparison to France, which saw 330,000 children abused by around 3,000 perpetrators within the Catholic Church.
It is evident that many abusers in the Catholic Church continue to view the church as their shield from misconduct. While church leadership has, over the past decade, at least attempted to take things more seriously, it shouldn’t take new rules and policies for clergy, the very people who preach the wisdom of God, to not abuse children (or anyone for that matter).
If 4% of the U.S. population engaged in the sexual abuse of minors, we would consider that a national emergency. Yet as studies show that 4% of U.S. Catholic clergy have faced credible allegations of sexual abuse of minors, it seems that few in power are pushing for real, meaningful change.
Clergy are afforded access to children in private settings and enjoy considerable trust and unquestioned authority due to their positions. It is not as if this sort of access, trust and credibility are not earned by the great majority of clergy. Yet, unfortunately, a large number of clergy abuse that privilege.
Clergy should be afforded access to congregants, but they should also be held accountable when they abuse it. If the Catholic Church and other denominations are serious about ending child sexual abuse, then the punishments must be more severe. Children should enjoy unfettered access to resources and reporting mechanisms when they are abused, and clergy should be stripped of their titles and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for abusing children using their authority.
The immediate reporting of sexual abuse incidents should not be a structured event that occurs just once every decade. Accountability must be ongoing.
The Ukiah Daily Journal is sharing this editorial from the Baltimore Sun.
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