NEW YORK - Quantifying its vast sex-abuse crisis, the U.S. Roman Catholic Church said Friday that allegations of child sex abuse by clerics more than doubled in its latest 12-month reporting period, and that its spending on victim compensation and child protection surged above $300 million. According to the report, Catholic dioceses and religious orders spent $301.6 million during the reporting period on payments to victims, legal fees and child-protection efforts. The group also said church staff should be instructed to report suspected abuse to secular law enforcement before filing a report internally. Compilation of the annual report entails an audit of Catholic dioceses across the U.S. to assess their compliance with a 2002 charter outlining the church’s child-protection policies. Only one diocese, based in Lincoln, Nebraska, was found noncompliant due to lack of transparency in public communications about child sex abuse cases.

Source: thestar May 31, 2019 19:30 UTC