Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 20, 2023 / 14:20 pm
The number of abuse allegations against Church officials has declined again according to a new report from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, with the encouraging numbers underscoring what the bishops say is a need for reform and justice.
The July 2023 Report on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, issued by the USCCB’s Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection, revealed the results of the audit year of 2021-2022, with the report saying the data were indicative of “cultural changes in our Church.”
An audit of several dozen dioceses throughout the country, performed by Stonebridge Business Partners, found “2,704 allegations … reported by 1,998 victims/survivors of child sexual abuse by clergy throughout 194 Catholic dioceses and eparchies that reported information.” The allegations concerned abuse “alleged to have occurred from the 1930s to the present.”
Those numbers are down from over 4,440 allegations in 2019, 4,250 in 2020, and 3,103 in 2021, continuing what is now a four-year downward trend of abuse claims leveled against clergy.