United States | Catholic priests are suspected of sexually abusing nearly 2,000 children in Illinois

Catholics priests are suspected of sexually abusing nearly 2,000 children in Illinois, USA, which began in the 1950s, reports news agency AP.

The Illinois Department of Justice has been investigating the cases since 2018. At that time, the church named 103 priests in connection with the investigation, but more cases were found during the investigation. According to the results published on Tuesday, 451 priests were involved in the abuse.

“I hope this report will bring attention to those who used their positions of trust and power to abuse innocent children, and to those men in church leadership who covered up this abuse,” said the Illinois Attorney General. Kwame Raoul.

According to Raoul, all the perpetrators will never be convicted, as some of them are already dead, but by publishing their names, the priests will be publicly held accountable for their actions. In addition, their victims may get a little help from making the report public.

Research according to Illinois dioceses, only 26 percent of the sexual abuse complaints they receive have been deemed “credible.” The remaining 74 percent have either not been investigated at all or have been dismissed as implausible.

Raoul’s predecessor by Lisa Madigan according to the report, the church in some cases tried to take active action against those who reported abuse.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a peer support group for victims of priest abuse, praised the report, but said that in reality there are probably more victims and perpetrators.

“The facts of the report cannot be disputed – prior to 2018, when the investigation began, hierarchies in all Illinois dioceses hid known abusers, refused to add them to the lists of accused and refused to acknowledge the truth shared with them by abuse survivors who told their stories in the report,” the group said.