According to a report from the Illinois attorney general’s office that was made public on Tuesday, thousands of Illinois children were sexually molested by hundreds of Catholic clergy over the course of nearly 70 years.
In six dioceses, up to 451 clergies and lay religious brothers assaulted 1,997 children between 1950 and 2019, according to a report released on Tuesday by Attorney General Kwame Raoul.
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The 696-page report accuses Illinois church leaders of regularly putting off confronting the accused priests and of being alarmingly slow to admit the scope of the abuse.
The state’s office used more than 100,000 pages of diocesan records and 600 private conversations with child sex abuse survivors to compile the report issued on Tuesday.
“It is my hope that this nearly 700-page report will provide some closure to survivors of child sex abuse by Catholic clerics by shining a light both on those who violated their positions of power and trust, and on the individuals in church leadership who covered up that abuse,” Raoul said in a statement.
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In 2018, Lisa Madigan, Raoul’s predecessor, started an investigation into the extent of state clergy sexual abuse following a Pennsylvania grand jury report that revealed abuse of 1,000 youngsters in six dioceses.
Dioceses all around the country were startled by the disclosures in that study, and numerous state solicitors general promised to look into clergy in their own states. Only 103 confirmed child sex abusers were listed publicly at the time by the Catholic dioceses of Illinois.
All of the recently exposed abusers are religious brothers who answer to autonomous religious orders rather than the diocese or bishop in their area. The study names victims who, after being mistreated, thought about killing themselves and used drink or use drugs to deal with their “anxiety and feelings of unworthiness.”
Additionally, survivors described experiencing troubles with sleep, anxiety, trust, nightmares, suicidal thoughts, guilt, substance abuse, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, difficulties forming and sustaining relationships, and sexual side effects.
The Catholic Conference of Illinois and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has not responded to requests for comment.
