“Why wasn’t it the church?”AdvertisementEven as it has pledged to go after predators in its ranks and provide support to those harmed by clergy, the church has done little to identify and reach sexual abuse victims. But the Catholic Church has made almost no effort to track the victims among them. “The church has to come into the shadows, into the trenches to find the people who were victimized, especially the people of color,” Sample said. “A family might sacrifice one or two children, look the other way, to preserve their relationship with the church for the others.”There is no accurate count of clergy abuse survivors. In looking into one African American survivor’s abuse claim, Kneipp was able to locate two more survivors of color from the same parish; the priest, he said, abused only boys in low-income black communities.

Source: Los Angeles Times January 04, 2020 23:26 UTC