Madigan’s office said the problems went beyond a lack of effort by the church, and that in some cases, the church sought to work against the accusers. However, it did point out that the overall list of accused clergy was far longer than the church had made public. The Madigan report didn’t accuse the dioceses of withholding the names of clergy who the church deemed had been “credibly” accused or against whom abuse claims had been “substantiated” - the church’s own investigation standards. WATCH: What a landmark report says about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church The abuse claims dated back decades and were made against some priests who had since died, but the preliminary report didn’t include certain key details such as when allegations were made. The preliminary report conducted under Raoul’s predecessor, Lisa Madigan, found that the church’s six dioceses had done a woefully inadequate job of investigating allegations, and in some cases didn’t investigate them at all or notify the state’s child welfare agency. It is to us, in a word, disgusting that these supposed shepherds would lie so blatantly.” “There is no questioning the facts of the report - until 2018 when the investigation began, hierarchs in every Illinois diocese kept known abusers under wraps, declined to include them on their accused lists, and refused to acknowledge the truth that survivors of abuse who came forward to make a report shared with them,” the statement said.

In a statement released Tuesday, The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests called the report “stunning” but emphasized that the numbers of victims and abusers cited by state investigators are likely undercounted. READ MORE: New Jersey Catholic diocese agrees to $87.5 million deal to settle sex abuse suits “These perpetrators may never be held accountable in a court of law, but by naming them here, the intention is to provide a public accountability and a measure of healing to survivors who have long suffered in silence.”Īccording to a preliminary investigation conducted by Raoul’s predecessor, the state’s dioceses deemed only 26 percent of the allegations they received to be “credible,” while either not investigating or deeming remaining 74 percent to be unsubstantiated. “It is my hope that this report will shine light both on those who violated their positions of power and trust to abuse innocent children, and on the men in church leadership who covered up that abuse,” Raoul said. He said state investigators found that 1,997 children across the state were abused by clergy between 19. READ MORE: FBI opens investigation into sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in New OrleansĪt a news conference announcing his office’s findings, Attorney General Kwame Raoul credited accusers for making the review possible. CHICAGO (AP) - Illinois’ attorney general released the results of a sweeping investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy on Tuesday, saying investigators found that 451 clergy sexually abused nearly 2,000 children since 1950 - far more than the 103 individuals the church had named when the state review began in 2018.

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