title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In April 2006, Margaret Witt, a major in the United States Air Force who was being investigated for homosexuality, filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington seeking declaratory and injunctive relief on the grounds that DADT violates substantive due process, the Equal Protection Clause, and procedural due process. In July 2007 the Secretary of the Air Force ordered her honorable discharge. Dismissed by the district court, the case was heard on appeal, and the Ninth Circuit issued its ruling on May 21, 2008. Its decision in "Witt v. Department of the Air Force" reinstated Witt's substantive-due-process and procedural-due-process claims and affirmed the dismissal of her Equal Protection claim. The Ninth Circuit, analyzing the Supreme Court decision in "Lawrence v. Texas" (2003), determined that DADT had to be subjected to heightened scrutiny, meaning that there must be an "important" governmental interest at issue, that DADT must "significantly" further the governmental interest, and that there can be no less intrusive way for the government to advance that interest.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: The Obama administration declined to appeal, allowing a May 3, 2009, deadline to pass, leaving "Witt" as binding on the entire Ninth Circuit, and returning the case to the District Court. On September 24, 2010, District Judge Ronald B. Leighton ruled that Witt's constitutional rights had been violated by her discharge and that she must be reinstated to the Air Force.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: The government filed an appeal with the Ninth Circuit on November 23, but did not attempt to have the trial court's ruling stayed pending the outcome. In a settlement announced on May 10, 2011, the Air Force agreed to drop its appeal and remove Witt's discharge from her military record. She will retire with full benefits.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In 2010, a lawsuit filed in 2004 by the Log Cabin Republicans (LCR), the nation's largest Republican gay organization, went to trial. Challenging the constitutionality of DADT, the plaintiffs stated that the policy violates the rights of gay military members to free speech, due process and open association. The government argued that DADT was necessary to advance a legitimate governmental interest. Plaintiffs introduced statements by President Barack Obama, from prepared remarks, that DADT "doesn't contribute to our national security", "weakens our national security", and that reversal is "essential for our national security". According to plaintiffs, these statements alone satisfied their burden of proof on the due process claims.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: On September 9, 2010, Judge Virginia A. Phillips ruled in "Log Cabin Republicans v. United States of America" that the ban on service by openly gay service members was an unconstitutional violation of the First and Fifth Amendments. On October 12, 2010, she granted an immediate worldwide injunction prohibiting the Department of Defense from enforcing the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy and ordered the military to suspend and discontinue any investigation or discharge, separation, or other proceedings based on it. The Department of Justice appealed her decision and requested a stay of her injunction, which Phillips denied but which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted on October 20


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: On October 19, 2010, military recruiters were told they could accept openly gay applicants. On October 20, 2010, Lt. Daniel Choi, an openly gay man honorably discharged under DADT, re-enlisted in the U.S. Army.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: Following the passage of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, the Justice Department asked the Ninth Circuit to suspend LCR's suit in light of the legislative repeal. LCR opposed the request, noting that gay personnel were still subject to discharge. On January 28, 2011, the Court denied the Justice Department's request. The Obama administration responded by requesting that the policy be allowed to stay in place while they completed the process of assuring that its end would not impact combat readiness. On March 28, the LCR filed a brief asking that the court deny the administration's request.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In 2011, while waiting for certification, several service members were discharged under DADT at their own insistence, until July 6 when a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals re-instated Judge Phillips' injunction barring further enforcement of the U.S. military's ban on openly gay service members. On July 11, the appeals court asked the DOJ to inform the court if it intended to proceed with its appeal. On July 14, the Justice Department filed a motion "to avoid short-circuiting the repeal process established by Congress during the final stages of the implementation of the repeal". and warning of "significant immediate harms on the government". On July 15, the Ninth Circuit restored most of the DADT policy, but continued to prohibit the government from discharging or investigating openly gay personnel. Following the implementation of DADT's repeal, a panel of three judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the Phillips ruling.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: Following the July 1999 murder of Army Pfc. Barry Winchell, apparently motivated by anti-gay bias, President Clinton issued an executive order modifying the Uniform Code of Military Justice to permit evidence of a hate crime to be admitted during the sentencing phase of a trial. In December, Secretary of Defense William Cohen ordered a review of DADT to determine if the policy's anti-gay harassment component was being observed. When that review found anti-gay sentiments were widely expressed and tolerated in the military, the DOD adopted a new anti-harassment policy in July 2000, though its effectiveness was disputed. On December 7, 1999, Hillary Clinton told an audience of gay supporters that "Gays and lesbians already serve with distinction in our nation's armed forces and should not face discrimination. Fitness to serve should be based on an individual's conduct, not their sexual orientation." Later that month, retired General Carl E. Mundy Jr. defended the implementation of DADT against what he called the "politicization" of the issue by both Clintons. He cited discharge statistics for the Marines for the past five years that showed 75% were based on "voluntary admission of homosexuality" and 49% occurred during the first six months of service, when new recruits were most likely to reevaluate their decision to enlist. He also argued against any change in the policy, writing in the "New York Times": "Conduct that is widely rejected by a majority of Americans can undermine the trust that is essential to creating and maintaining the sense of unity that is critical to the success of a military organization operating under the very different and difficult demands of combat." The conviction of Winchell's murderer, according to the "New York Times", "galvanized opposition" to DADT, an issue that had "largely vanished from public debate". Opponents of the policy focused on punishing harassment in the military rather than the policy itself, which Senator Chuck Hagel defended on December 25: "The U.S. armed forces aren't some social experiment."


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: The principal candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000, Al Gore and Bill Bradley, both endorsed military service by open gays and lesbians, provoking opposition from high-ranking retired military officers, notably the recently retired commandant of the Marine Corps, General Charles C. Krulak. He and others objected to Gore's statement that he would use support for ending DADT as a "litmus test" when considering candidates for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The 2000 Democratic Party platform was silent on the issue, while the Republican Party platform that year said: "We affirm that homosexuality is incompatible with military service." Following the election of George W. Bush in 2000, observers expected him to avoid any changes to DADT, since his nominee for Secretary of State Colin Powell had participated in its creation.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In February 2004, members of the British Armed Forces, Lt Rolf Kurth and Lt Cdr Craig Jones, along with Aaron Belkin, Director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military met with members of Congress and spoke at the National Defense University. They spoke about their experience of the current situation in the UK. The UK lifted the gay ban on members serving in their forces in 2000.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In July 2004, the American Psychological Association issued a statement that DADT "discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation" and that "Empirical evidence fails to show that sexual orientation is germane to any aspect of military effectiveness including unit cohesion, morale, recruitment and retention." It said that the U.S. military's track record overcoming past racial and gender discrimination demonstrated its ability to integrate groups previously excluded. The Republican Party platform that year reiterated its support for the policy—"We affirm traditional military culture, and we affirm that homosexuality is incompatible with military service."—while the Democratic Party maintained its silence.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In February 2005, the Government Accountability Office released estimates of the cost of DADT. It reported at least $95.4 million in recruiting costs and at least $95.1 million for training replacements for the 9,488 troops discharged from 1994 through 2003, while noting that the true figures might be higher. In September, as part of its campaign to demonstrate that the military allowed open homosexuals to serve when its workforce requirements were greatest, the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military (now the Palm Center) reported that army regulations allowed the active-duty deployment of Army Reservists and National Guard troops who claim to be or who are accused of being gay. A U.S. Army Forces Command spokesperson said the regulation was intended to prevent Reservists and National Guard members from pretending to be gay to escape combat. Advocates of ending DADT repeatedly publicized discharges of highly trained gay and lesbian personnel, especially those in positions with critical shortages, including fifty-nine Arabic speakers and nine Persian speakers. Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, later argued that the military's failure to ask about sexual orientation at recruitment was the cause of the discharges: [Y]ou could reduce this number to zero or near zero if the Department of Defense dropped Don't Ask, Don't Tell. ... We should not be training people who are not eligible to be in the Armed Forces."


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In February 2006, a University of California Blue Ribbon Commission that included Lawrence Korb, a former assistant defense secretary during the Reagan administration, William Perry, Secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration, and professors from the United States Military Academy released their assessment of the GAO's analysis of the cost of DADT released a year earlier. The commission report stated that the GAO did not take into account the value the military lost from the departures. They said that that total cost was closer to $363 million, including $14.3 million for "separation travel" following a service member's discharge, $17.8 million for training officers, $252.4 million for training enlistees, and $79.3 million in recruiting costs.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In 2006, Soulforce, a national LGBT rights organization, organized its Right to Serve Campaign, in which gay men and lesbians in several cities attempted to enlist in the Armed Forces or National Guard. Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness stated in September: "I think the people involved here do not have the best interests of the military at heart. They never have. They are promoting an agenda to normalize homosexuality in America using the military as a battering ram to promote that broader agenda." She said that "pro-homosexual activists ... are creating media events all over the country and even internationally."


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In 2006, a speaking tour of gay former service members, organized by SLDN, Log Cabin Republicans, and Meehan, visited 18 colleges and universities. Patrick Guerriero, executive director of Log Cabin, thought the repeal movement was gaining "new traction" but "Ultimately", said, "we think it's going to take a Republican with strong military credentials to make a shift in the policy." Elaine Donnelly called such efforts "a big P.R. campaign" and said that "The law is there to protect good order and discipline in the military, and it's not going to change."


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In December 2006, Zogby International released the results of a poll of military personnel conducted in October 2006 that found that 26% favored allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, 37% were opposed, while 37% expressed no preference or were unsure. Of respondents who had experience with gay people in their unit, 6% said their presence had a positive impact on their personal morale, 66% said no impact, and 28% said negative impact. Regarding overall unit morale, 3% said positive impact, 64% no impact, and 27% negative impact.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: Retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Shalikashvili and former Senator and Secretary of Defense William Cohen opposed the policy in January 2007: "I now believe that if gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces" Shalikashvili wrote. "Our military has been stretched thin by our deployments in the Middle East, and we must welcome the service of any American who is willing and able to do the job." Shalikashvili cited the recent "Zogby poll of more than 500 service members returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, three-quarters of whom said they were comfortable interacting with gay people. The debate took a different turn in March when General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the editorial board of the "Chicago Tribune" he supported DADT because "homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and ... we should not condone immoral acts." His remarks became, according to the "Tribune", "a huge news story on radio, television and the Internet during the day and showed how sensitive the Pentagon's policy has become." Senator John Warner, who backed DADT, said "I respectfully, but strongly, disagree with the chairman's view that homosexuality is immoral", and Pace expressed regret for expressing his personal views and said that DADT "does not make a judgment about the morality of individual acts." Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, then in the early stages of his campaign for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, defended DADT:


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: That summer, after U.S. senator Larry Craig was arrested for lewd conduct in a men's restroom, conservative commentator Michael Medved argued that any liberalization of DADT would "compromise restroom integrity and security". He wrote: "The national shudder of discomfort and queasiness associated with any introduction of homosexual eroticism into public men's rooms should make us more determined than ever to resist the injection of those lurid attitudes into the even more explosive situation of the U.S. military."


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In November 2007, 28 retired generals and admirals urged Congress to repeal the policy, citing evidence that 65,000 gay men and women were serving in the armed forces and that there were over a million gay veterans. On November 17, 2008, 104 retired generals and admirals signed a similar statement. In December, SLDN arranged for "60 Minutes" to interview Darren Manzella, an Army medic who served in Iraq after coming out to his unit.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: On May 4, 2008, while Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen addressed the graduating cadets at West Point, a cadet asked what would happen if the next administration were supportive of legislation allowing gays to serve openly. Mullen responded, "Congress, and not the military, is responsible for DADT." Previously, during his Senate confirmation hearing in 2007, Mullen told lawmakers, "I really think it is for the American people to come forward, really through this body, to both debate that policy and make changes, if that's appropriate." He went on to say, "I'd love to have Congress make its own decisions" with respect to considering repeal.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In May 2009, when a committee of military law experts at the Palm Center, an anti-DADT research institute, concluded that the President could issue an Executive Order to suspend homosexual conduct discharges, Obama rejected that option and said he wanted Congress to change the law.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: On July 5, 2009, Colin Powell told CNN that the policy was "correct for the time" but that "sixteen years have now gone by, and I think a lot has changed with respect to attitudes within our country, and therefore I think this is a policy and a law that should be reviewed." Interviewed for the same broadcast, Mullen said the policy would continue to be implemented until the law was repealed, and that his advice was to "move in a measured way. ... At a time when we're fighting two conflicts there is a great deal of pressure on our forces and their families." In September, "Joint Force Quarterly" published an article by an Air Force colonel that disputed the argument that unit cohesion is compromised by the presence of openly gay personnel.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In October 2009, the Commission on Military Justice, known as the Cox Commission, repeated its 2001 recommendation that Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which bans sodomy, be repealed, noting that "most acts of consensual sodomy committed by consenting military personnel are not prosecuted, creating a perception that prosecution of this sexual behavior is arbitrary."


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In January 2010, the White House and congressional officials started work on repealing the ban by inserting language into the 2011 defense authorization bill. During Obama's State of the Union Address on January 27, 2010, he said that he would work with Congress and the military to enact a repeal of the gay ban law and for the first time set a timetable for repeal.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: At a February 2, 2010, congressional hearing, Senator John McCain read from a letter signed by "over one thousand former general and flag officers". It said: "We firmly believe that this law, which Congress passed to protect good order, discipline and morale in the unique environment of the armed forces, deserves continued support." The signature campaign had been organized by Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness, a longtime supporter of a traditional all-male and all-heterosexual military. Servicemembers United, a veterans group opposed to DADT, issued a report critical of the letter's legitimacy. They said that among those signing the letter were officers who had no knowledge of their inclusion or who had refused to be included, and even one instance of a general's widow who signed her husband's name to the letter though he had died before the survey was published. The average age of the officers whose names were listed as signing the letter was 74, the oldest was 98, and Servicemembers United noted that "only a small fraction of these officers have even served in the military during the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' period, much less in the 21st century military."


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: The Center for American Progress issued a report in March 2010 that said a smooth implementation of an end to DADT required eight specified changes to the military's internal regulations. On March 25, 2010, Defense Secretary Gates announced new rules mandating that only flag officers could initiate discharge proceedings and imposing more stringent rules of evidence on discharge proceedings.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: The underlying justifications for DADT had been subjected to increasing suspicion and outright rejection by the early 21st century. Mounting evidence obtained from the integration efforts of foreign militaries, surveys of U.S. military personnel, and studies conducted by the DoD gave credence to the view that the presence of open homosexuals within the military would not be detrimental at all to the armed forces. A DoD study conducted at the behest of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in 2010 supports this most.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: The DoD working group conducting the study considered the impact that lifting the ban would have on unit cohesion and effectiveness, good order and discipline, and military morale. The study included a survey that revealed significant differences between respondents who believed they had served with homosexual troops and those who did not believe they had. In analyzing such data, the DoD working group concluded that it was actually generalized perceptions of homosexual troops that led to the perceived unrest that would occur without DADT. Ultimately, the study deemed the overall risk to military effectiveness of lifting the ban to be low. Citing the ability of the armed forces to adjust to the previous integration of African-Americans and women, the DoD study asserted that the United States military could adjust as had it before in history without an impending serious effect.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In March 2005, Rep. Martin T. Meehan introduced the Military Readiness Enhancement Act in the House. It aimed "to amend title 10, United States Code, to enhance the readiness of the Armed Forces by replacing the current policy concerning homosexuality in the Armed Forces, referred to as 'Don't ask, don't tell,' with a policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation". As of 2006, it had 105 Democrats and 4 Republicans as co-sponsors. He introduced the bill again in 2007 and 2009.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: During the 2008 U.S. presidential election campaign, Senator Barack Obama advocated a full repeal of the laws barring gays and lesbians from serving in the military. Nineteen days after his election, Obama's advisers announced that plans to repeal the policy might be delayed until 2010, because Obama "first wants to confer with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his new political appointees at the Pentagon to reach a consensus, and then present legislation to Congress". As president he advocated a policy change to allow gay personnel to serve openly in the armed forces, stating that the U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops expelled from the military, including language experts fluent in Arabic, because of DADT. On the eve of the National Equality March in Washington, D.C., October 10, 2009, Obama stated in a speech before the Human Rights Campaign that he would end the ban, but he offered no timetable. Obama said in his 2010 State of the Union Address: "This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are." This statement was quickly followed up by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs chairman Michael Mullen voicing their support for a repeal of DADT.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: Democrats in both houses of Congress first attempted to end DADT by amending the Defense Authorization Act. On May 27, 2010, on a 234–194 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Murphy amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011. It provided for repeal of the DADT policy and created a process for lifting the policy, including a U.S. Department of Defense study and certification by key officials that the change in policy would not harm military readiness followed by a waiting period of 60 days. The amended defense bill passed the House on May 28, 2010. On September 21, 2010, John McCain led a successful filibuster against the debate on the Defense Authorization Act, in which 56 Senators voted to end debate, four short of the 60 votes required. Some advocates for repeal, including the Palm Center, OutServe, and Knights Out, opposed any attempt to block the passage of NDAA if it failed to include DADT repeal language. The Human Rights Campaign, the Center for American Progress, Servicemembers United and SLDN refused to concede that possibility.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit, "Collins v. United States", against the Department of Defense in November 2010 seeking full compensation for those discharged under the policy.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: On November 30, 2010, the Joint Chiefs of Staff released the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Comprehensive Review Working Group (CRWG) report authored by Jeh C. Johnson, General Counsel of the Department of Defense, and Army General Carter F. Ham. It outlined a path to the implementation of repeal of DADT. The report indicated that there was a low risk of service disruptions due to repealing the ban, provided time was provided for proper implementation and training. It included the results of a survey of 115,000 active-duty and reserve service members. Across all service branches, 30 percent thought that integrating gays into the military would have negative consequences. In the Marine Corps and combat specialties, the percentage with that negative assessment ranged from 40 to 60 percent. The CRWG also said that 69 percent of all those surveyed believed they had already worked with a gay or lesbian and of those, 92 percent reported that the impact of that person's presence was positive or neutral. The same day, in response to the CRWG, 30 professors and scholars, most from military institutions, issued a joint statement saying that the CRWG "echoes more than 20 studies, including studies by military researchers, all of which reach the same conclusion: allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly will not harm the military ... We hope that our collective statement underscores that the debate about the evidence is now officially over". The Family Research Council's president, Tony Perkins, interpreted the CRWG data differently, writing that it "reveals that 40 percent of Marines and 25 percent of the Army could leave".


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: Gates encouraged Congress to act quickly to repeal the law so that the military could carefully adjust rather than face a court decision requiring it to lift the policy immediately. The United States Senate held two days of hearings on December 2 and 3, 2010, to consider the CRWG report. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs chairman Michael Mullen urged immediate repeal. The heads of the Marine Corps, Army, and Navy all advised against immediate repeal and expressed varied views on its eventual repeal. Oliver North, writing in "National Review" the next week, said that Gates' testimony showed "a deeply misguided commitment to political correctness". He interpreted the CRWG's data as indicating a high risk that large numbers of resignations would follow the repeal of DADT. Service members, especially combat troops, he wrote, "deserve better than to be treated like lab rats in Mr. Obama's radical social experiment".


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: On December 9, 2010, another filibuster prevented debate on the Defense Authorization Act. In response to that vote, Senators Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins introduced a bill that included the policy-related portions of the Defense Authorization Act that they considered more likely to pass as a stand-alone bill. It passed the House on a vote of 250 to 175 on December 15, 2010. On December 18, 2010, the Senate voted to end debate on its version of the bill by a cloture vote of 63–33. The final Senate vote was held later that same day, with the measure passing by a vote of 65–31.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates released a statement following the vote indicating that the planning for implementation of a policy repeal would begin right away and would continue until Gates certified that conditions were met for orderly repeal of the policy. President Obama signed the repeal into law on December 22, 2010.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: The repeal act established a process for ending the DADT policy. The President, the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were required to certify in writing that they had reviewed the Pentagon's report on the effects of DADT repeal, that the appropriate regulations had been reviewed and drafted, and that implementation of repeal regulations "is consistent with the standards of military readiness, military effectiveness, unit cohesion, and recruiting and retention of the Armed Forces". Once certification was given, DADT would be lifted after a 60-day waiting period.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: Representative Duncan D. Hunter announced plans in January 2011 to introduce a bill designed to delay the end of DADT. His proposed legislation required all of the chiefs of the armed services to submit the certification at the time required only of the President, Defense Secretary and Joint Chiefs chairman. In April, Perkins of the Family Research Council argued that the Pentagon was misrepresenting its own survey data and that hearings by the House Armed Services Committee, now under Republican control, could persuade Obama to withhold certification. Congressional efforts to prevent the change in policy from going into effect continued into May and June 2011.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: On January 29, 2011, Pentagon officials stated that the training process to prepare troops for the end of DADT would begin in February and would proceed quickly, though they suggested that it might not be completed in 2011. On the same day, the DOD announced it would not offer any additional compensation to service members who had been discharged under DADT, who received half of the separation pay other honorably discharged service members received.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In May 2011, the U.S. Army reprimanded three colonels for performing a skit in March 2011 at a function at Yongsan Garrison, South Korea, that mocked the repeal.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In May 2011, revelations that an April Navy memo relating to its DADT training guidelines contemplated allowing same-sex weddings in base chapels and allowing chaplains to officiate if they so chose resulted in a letter of protest from 63 Republican congressman, citing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as controlling the use of federal property. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said the guidelines "make it even more uncomfortable for men and women of faith to perform their duties". A Pentagon spokesperson replied that DOMA "does not limit the type of religious ceremonies a chaplain may perform in a chapel on a military installation", and a Navy spokesperson said that "A chaplain can conduct a same-sex ceremony if it is in the tenets of his faith". A few days later the Navy rescinded its earlier instructions "pending additional legal and policy review and interdepartmental coordination".


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: While waiting for certification, several service members were discharged at their own insistence until a July 6 ruling from a federal appeals court barred further enforcement of the U.S. military's ban on openly gay service members, which the military promptly did.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: Anticipating the lifting of DADT, some active duty service members wearing civilian clothes marched in San Diego's gay pride parade on July 16. The DOD noted that participation "does not constitute a declaration of sexual orientation".


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: President Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sent the certification required by the Repeal Act to Congress on July 22, 2011, setting the end of DADT for September 20, 2011. A Pentagon spokesman said that service members discharged under DADT would be able to re-apply to rejoin the military then.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: At the end of August 2011, the DOD approved the distribution of the magazine produced by OutServe, an organization of gay and lesbian service members, at Army and Air Force base exchanges beginning with the September 20 issue, coinciding with the end of DADT.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: On September 20, Air force officials announced that 22 Air Force Instructions were "updated as a result of the repeal of DADT". On September 30, 2011, the Department of Defense modified regulations to reflect the repeal by deleting "homosexual conduct" as a ground for administrative separation.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: On the eve of repeal, US Air Force 1st Lt. Josh Seefried, one of the founders of OutServe, an organization of LGBT troops, revealed his identity after two years of hiding behind a pseudonym. Senior Airman Randy Phillips, after conducting a social media campaign seeking encouragement coming out and already out to his military co-workers, came out to his father on the evening of September 19. When the video of their conversation he posted on YouTube went viral, it made him, in one journalist's estimation, "the poster boy for the DADT repeal". The moment the repeal took effect at midnight on September 19, US Navy Lt. Gary C. Ross married his same-sex partner of eleven and a half years, Dan Swezy, making them the first same-sex military couple to legally marry in the United States. Retired Rear Adm. Alan M. Steinman became the highest-ranking person to come out immediately following the end of DADT. HBO produced a World of Wonder documentary, "The Strange History of Don't Ask, Don't Tell", and premiered it on September 20. "Variety" called it "an unapologetic piece of liberal advocacy" and "a testament to what formidable opponents ignorance and prejudice can be". Discharge proceedings on the grounds of homosexuality, some begun years earlier, came to an end.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In the weeks that followed, a series of firsts attracted press attention to the impact of the repeal. The Marine Corps were the first branch of the armed services to recruit from the LGBTQ community. Reservist Jeremy Johnson became the first person discharged under DADT to re-enlist. Jase Daniels became the first to return to active duty, re-joining the Navy as a third class petty officer. On December 2, Air Force intelligence officer Ginger Wallace became the first open LGBT service member to have a same-sex partner participate in the "pinning-on" ceremony that marked her promotion to colonel. On December 23, after 80 days at sea, US Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta won the right to the traditional "first kiss" upon returning to port and shared it with her same-sex partner. On January 20, 2012, U.S. service members deployed to Bagram, Afghanistan, produced a video in support of the It Gets Better Project, which aims to support LGBT at-risk youth. Widespread news coverage continued even months after the repeal date, when a photograph of Marine Sgt. Brandon Morgan kissing his partner at a February 22, 2012, homecoming celebration on Marine Corps Base Hawaii went viral. When asked for a comment, a spokesperson for the Marine Corps said: "It's your typical homecoming photo."


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: On September 30, 2011, Under Secretary of Defense Clifford Stanley announced the DOD's policy that military chaplains are allowed to perform same-sex marriages "on or off a military installation" where local law permits them. His memo noted that "a chaplain is not required to participate in or officiate a private ceremony if doing so would be in variance with the tenets of his or her religion" and "a military chaplain's participation in a private ceremony does not constitute an endorsement of the ceremony by DoD". Some religious groups announced that their chaplains would not participate in such weddings, including an organization of evangelical Protestants, the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty and Roman Catholics led by Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In late October 2011, speaking at the Air Force Academy, Colonel Gary Packard, leader of the team that drafted the DOD's repeal implementation plan, said: "The best quote I've heard so far is, 'Well, some people's Facebook status changed, but that was about it. In late November, discussing the repeal of DADT and its implementation, Marine General James F. Amos said "I'm very pleased with how it has gone" and called it a "non-event". He said his earlier public opposition was appropriate based on ongoing combat operations and the negative assessment of the policy given by 56% of combat troops under his command in the Department of Defense's November 2010 survey. A Defense Department spokesperson said implementation of repeal occurred without incident and added: "We attribute this success to our comprehensive pre-repeal training program, combined with the continued close monitoring and enforcement of standards by our military leaders at all levels."


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In December 2011, Congress considered two DADT-related amendments in the course of work on the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012. The Senate approved 97–3, an amendment removing the prohibition on sodomy found in Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice as recommended by the Comprehensive Review Working Group (CRWG) a year earlier. The House approved an amendment banning same-sex marriages from being performed at military bases or by military employees, including chaplains and other employees of the military when "acting in an official capacity". Neither amendment appeared in the final legislation.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In July 2012, the Department of Defense granted permission for military personnel to wear their uniforms while participating in the San Diego Pride Parade. This was the first time that U.S. military personnel were permitted to wear their service uniforms in such a parade.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: Marking the first anniversary of the passage of the Repeal Act, television news networks reported no incidents in the three months since DADT ended. One aired video of a social gathering for gay service members at a base in Afghanistan. Another reported on the experience of lesbian and gay troops, including some rejection after coming out to colleagues.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: The Palm Center, a think tank that studies issues of sexuality and the military, released a study in September 2012 that found no negative consequences, nor any effect on military effectiveness from DADT repeal. This study began six months following repeal and concluded at the one year mark. The study included surveys of 553 generals and admirals who had opposed repeal, experts who supported DADT, and more than 60 heterosexual, gay, lesbian and bisexual active duty service personnel.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: On January 7, 2013, the ACLU reached a settlement with the federal government in "Collins v. United States". It provided for the payment of full separation pay to service members discharged under DADT since November 10, 2004, who had previously been granted only half that.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: Several candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination called for the restoration of DADT, including Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum. Newt Gingrich called for an extensive review of DADT's repeal.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: Ron Paul, having voted for the Repeal Act, maintained his support for allowing military service by open homosexuals. Herman Cain called the issue "a distraction" and opposed reinstating DADT. Mitt Romney said that the winding down of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan obviated his opposition to the repeal and said he was not proposing any change to policy.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: On September 22, 2011, the audience at a Republican candidates' debate booed a U.S. soldier posted in Iraq who asked a question via video about the repeal of DADT, and none of the candidates noticed or responded to the crowd's behavior. Two days later, Obama commented on the incident while addressing a dinner of the Human Rights Campaign: "You want to be commander in chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it's not politically convenient".


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In June 2012, Rep. Howard McKeon, Republican chair of the House Armed Services Committee, said he considered the repeal of DADT a settled issue, and that if Romney became president he would not advocate its reinstatement, though others in his party might.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In September 2021, on the 10th anniversary of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal, President Joe Biden announced that the Veterans Administration would start providing benefits for servicemembers who received other-than-honorable discharges (before DADT was enacted and while it was in effect) because of their sexual orientation.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In 1993, "Time" reported that 44% of those polled supported openly gay servicemembers, and in 1994, a CNN poll indicated 53% of Americans believed gays and lesbians should be permitted to serve openly.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: According to a December 2010 "The Washington Post"-ABC News poll 77% of Americans said gays and lesbians who publicly disclose their sexual orientation should be able to serve in the military. That number showed little change from polls over the previous two years, but represented the highest level of support in a Post-ABC poll. The support also cut across partisan and ideological lines, with majorities of Democrats (86%), Republicans (74%), independents (74%), liberals (92%), conservatives (67%), white evangelical Protestants (70%) and non-religious (84%) in favor of homosexuals serving openly.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: A November 2010 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 58% of the U.S. public favored allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, while less than half as many (27%) were opposed. According to a November 2010 CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, 72% of adult Americans favored permitting people who are openly gay or lesbian to serve in the military, while 23% opposed it. "The main difference between the CNN poll and the Pew poll is in the number of respondents who told pollsters that they didn't have an opinion on this topic – 16 percent in the Pew poll compared to only five percent in the CNN survey", said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "The two polls report virtually the same number who say they oppose gays serving openly in the military, which suggests that there are some people who favor that change in policy but for some reason were reluctant to admit that to the Pew interviewers. That happens occasionally on topics where moral issues and equal-treatment issues intersect."


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: A February 2010 Quinnipiac University Polling Institute national poll showed 57% of American voters favored gays serving openly, compared to 36% opposed, while 66% said not allowing openly gay personnel to serve is discrimination, compared to 31% who did not see it as discrimination. A CBS News/"The New York Times" national poll done at the same time showed 58% of Americans favored gays serving openly, compared to 28% opposed.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: Chaplain groups and religious organizations took various positions on DADT. Some felt that the policy needed to be withdrawn to make the military more inclusive. The Southern Baptist Convention battled the repeal of DADT, warning that their endorsements for chaplains might be withdrawn if the repeal took place. They took the position that allowing gay men and women to serve in the military without restriction would have a negative impact on the ability of chaplains who think homosexuality is a sin to speak freely regarding their religious beliefs. The Roman Catholic Church called for the retention of the policy, but had no plans to withdraw its priests from serving as military chaplains. Sixty-five retired chaplains signed a letter opposing repeal, stating that repeal would make it impossible for chaplains whose faith teaches that same-sex behavior is immoral to minister to military service members. Other religious organizations and agencies called the repeal of the policy a "non-event" or "non-issue" for chaplains, claiming that chaplains have always supported military service personnel, whether or not they agree with all their actions or beliefs.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: After the policy was introduced in 1993, the military discharged over 13,000 troops from the military under DADT. The number of discharges per fiscal year under DADT dropped sharply after the September 11 attacks and remained comparatively low through to the repeal. Discharges exceeded 600 every year until 2009.


title: Don't ask, don't tell

text: In November 2019, both Rhode Island and New York State signed into law and implemented restoring military benefits to gay and lesbian military veterans. An estimated approximately 100,000 individuals were affected by the "don't ask don't tell policy" (since it was repealed in September 2011).


title: Four Symbols

text: The Four Symbols (, literally meaning "four images"), are four mythological creatures appearing among the Chinese constellations along the ecliptic, and viewed as the guardians of the four cardinal directions. These four creatures are also referred to by a variety of other names, including "Four Guardians", "Four Gods", and "Four Auspicious Beasts". They are the Azure Dragon of the East, the Vermilion Bird of the South, the White Tiger of the West, and the Black Tortoise (also called "Black Warrior") of the North. Each of the creatures is most closely associated with a cardinal direction and a color, but also additionally represents other aspects, including a season of the year, an emotion, virtue, and one of the Chinese "five elements" (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water). Each has been given its own individual traits, origin story and a reason for being. Symbolically, and as part of spiritual and religious belief and meaning, these creatures have been culturally important across countries in the East Asian cultural sphere.


title: Four Symbols

text: Depictions of mythological creatures clearly ancestral to the modern set of four creatures have been found throughout China. Currently, the oldest known depiction was found in 1987 in a tomb in Xishuipo (西水坡) in Puyang, Henan, which has been dated to approximately 5300 BC. In the tomb, labeled M45, immediately adjacent to the remains of the main occupant to the east and west were found mosaics made of clam shells and bones forming images closely resembling the Azure Dragon and White Tiger, respectively.


title: Four Symbols

text: The modern standard configuration was settled much later, with variations appearing throughout Chinese history. For example, the "Rong Cheng Shi" manuscript recovered in 1994, which dates to the Warring States period (ca. 453–221 BCE), gives five directions rather than four and places the animals differently. According to that document, Yu the Great gave directional banners to his people, marked with the following insignia: the north with a bird, the south with a snake, the east with the sun, the west with the moon, and the center with a bear. The Chinese classic "Book of Rites" mentions the Vermillion Bird, Black Tortoise (Dark Warrior), Azure Dragon, and White Tiger as heraldric animals on war flags; they were the names of asterisms associated with the four cardinal directions: South, North, East, and West, respectively.


title: Four Symbols

text: In Taoism, the Four Symbols have been assigned human identities and names. The Azure Dragon is named Meng Zhang (), the Vermilion Bird is called Ling Guang (), the White Tiger Jian Bing (), and the Black Tortoise Zhi Ming (). Its Japanese equivalent, in corresponding order: Seiryuu (east), Suzaku (south), Byakko (west), Genbu (North).


title: Four Symbols

text: The colours associated with the four creatures can be said to match the colours of soil in the corresponding areas of China: the bluish-grey water-logged soils of the east, the reddish iron-rich soils of the south, the whitish saline soils of the western deserts, the black organic-rich soils of the north, and the yellow soils from the central loess plateau.


title: Four Symbols

text: These mythological creatures have also been syncretized into the Five Phases system ("Wuxing"). The Azure Dragon of the East represents Wood, the Vermilion Bird of the South represents Fire, the White Tiger of the West represents Metal, and the Black Tortoise (or Black Warrior) of the North represents Water. In this system, the fifth principle Earth is represented by the Yellow Dragon of the Center.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: There have been many cases of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, nuns, Popes and other members of religious life. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the cases have involved many allegations, investigations, trials, convictions, acknowledgement and apologies by Church authorities, and revelations about decades of instances of abuse and attempts by Church officials to cover them up. The abused include mostly boys but also girls, some as young as three years old, with the majority between the ages of 11 and 14. Criminal cases for the most part do not cover sexual harassment of adults. The accusations of abuse and cover-ups began to receive public attention during the late 1980s. Many of these cases allege decades of abuse, frequently made by adults or older youths years after the abuse occurred. Cases have also been brought against members of the Catholic hierarchy who covered up sex abuse allegations and moved abusive priests to other parishes, where abuse continued.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: By the 1990s, the cases began to receive significant media and public attention in countries including in Canada, United States, Chile, Australia and Ireland, and much of Europe and South America.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 2002, an investigation by "The Boston Globe" led to widespread media coverage of the issue in the United States. Widespread abuse has been exposed in Europe, Australia, Chile, and the United States, reflecting worldwide patterns of long-term abuse as well as the Church hierarchy's pattern of regularly covering up reports of abuse.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: From 2001 to 2010, the Holy See examined sex abuse cases involving about 3,000 priests, some of which dated back fifty years. Diocesan officials and academics knowledgeable about the Roman Catholic Church say that sexual abuse by clergy is generally not discussed, and thus is difficult to measure. Members of the Church's hierarchy have argued that media coverage was excessive and disproportionate, and that such abuse also takes place in other religions and institutions, a stance that dismayed critics who saw it as a device to avoid resolving the abuse problem within the Church.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In a 2001 apology, John Paul II called sexual abuse within the Church "a profound contradiction of the teaching and witness of Jesus Christ". Benedict XVI apologised, met with victims, and spoke of his "shame" at the evil of abuse, calling for perpetrators to be brought to justice, and denouncing mishandling by church authorities. In 2018, referring to a particular case in Chile, Pope Francis accused victims of fabricating allegations, but by April, was apologizing for his "tragic error" and by August, was expressing "shame and sorrow" for the tragic history. He convened a four-day summit meeting with the participation of the presidents of all the episcopal conferences of the world, which was held in Vatican City from 21 to 24 February 2019, to discuss preventing sexual abuse by Catholic Church clergy. In December 2019, Pope Francis made sweeping changes that allow for greater transparency. In June 2021, a team of U.N. special rapporteurs for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) have criticized the Vatican, referring to persistent allegations that the Catholic Church had obstructed and failed to cooperate with domestic judicial proceedings in order to prevent accountability for abusers and compensation for victims.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: However, some Christian media and institutions have criticized the reporting media for anti-Catholic bias. A report issued by Christian Ministry Resources (CMR) in 2002 stated that contrary to popular opinion, there are more allegations of child sexual abuse in Protestant congregations than Catholic ones, and that sexual violence is most often committed by volunteers rather than by priests themselves. The report also criticized the way the media reported sexual crimes, stating that the Australian media reported on sexual abuse allegations against Catholic clergy, but ignored such allegations against Protestant churches and Jehovah's Witnesses. Stephen Joseph Rossetti (a Catholic priest) reported that the frequency of pedophilia amongst the Catholic clergy is no higher than among general population - thus a Catholic priest is no more likely to be a pedophile than an average male.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Sexual abuse in the Catholic Church has been reported as far back as the 11th century, when Peter Damian wrote the treatise "Liber Gomorrhianus" against such abuses and others.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In the late 15th century, Katharina von Zimmern and her sister were removed from their abbey to live in their family's house for a while partly because the young girls were molested by priests. In 1531, Martin Luther claimed that Pope Leo X had vetoed a measure that cardinals should restrict the number of boys they kept for their pleasure, "otherwise it would have been spread throughout the world how openly and shamelessly the Pope and the cardinals in Rome practice sodomy."


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: The sexual abuse of children below the age of consent by priests has received significant media and public attention in the United States, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, Belgium, France, Germany, and Australia. Cases have also been reported in other nations throughout the world. Many of the cases span several decades and are brought forward years after the abuse occurred.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Although nationwide inquiries have been conducted only in the United States and Ireland, as well as an Australian inquiry into institutional responses, cases of clerical sexual abuse of minors have been reported and prosecuted in New Zealand, Canada and other countries. In 1995, Austrian Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër resigned from his post as Archbishop of Vienna over allegations of sexual abuse, although he remained a Cardinal. Since 1995, more than 100 priests from various parts of Australia were convicted of sexual abuse.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In Ireland, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse issued a report that covered six decades (from the 1950s). It noted "endemic" sexual abuse in Catholic boys' institutions, saying that church leaders were aware of abuses and that government inspectors failed to "stop beatings, rapes and humiliation." The report noted the "centrality of poverty and social vulnerability in the lives of the victims of abuse."


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In Australia, according to Broken Rites, a support and advocacy group for church-related sex abuse victims, there have been over one hundred cases in which Catholic priests have been charged for child sex offenses. A 2012 police report claimed that 40 suicide deaths were directly related to abuse by Catholic clergy in the state of Victoria. In January 2013, an Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was called to investigate institutional sexual abuse of minors related, but not exclusive, to matters concerning clergy of the Catholic Church.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Of the Catholic sexual abuse cases in Latin America, the most widely known is the sexual scandal of Father Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legion of Christ, a Roman Catholic congregation. The revelations took place after the Legion spent more than a decade denying allegations and criticizing the victims who claimed abuse.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In Tanzania, Father Kit Cunningham and three other priests were exposed as pedophiles after Cunningham's death. The abuse took place in the 1960s but was only publicly revealed in 2011, largely through a BBC documentary.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Church officials and academics knowledgeable about the Third World Roman Catholic Church say that sexual abuse by clergy is generally not discussed, and thus is difficult to measure. This may be due in part to the more hierarchical structure of the Church in Third World countries, the "psychological health" of clergy in those regions, and because Third World media, legal systems and public culture are not as apt to thoroughly discuss sexual abuse. In the Philippines, where at least 85% of the population is Catholic, the revelations of sexual abuse by priests, including child sexual abuse, followed the United States' widespread reporting in 2002.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Academic Mathew N. Schmalz notes India as an example: "you would have gossip and rumors, but it never reaches the level of formal charges or controversies." Traditionally, the Roman Catholic Church has held tight control over many aspects of church life around the globe, but it left sex abuse cases to be handled locally. In 2001, the church first required that sex abuse cases be reported to Rome. In July 2010, the Vatican doubled the length of time after the 18th birthday of the victim in which clergymen can be tried in a church court. It also streamlined the processes for removing abusive priests.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: According to a 2004 research study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 4,392 Catholic priests and deacons in active ministry between 1950 and 2002 have been plausibly (neither withdrawn nor disproven) accused of underage sexual abuse by 10,667 individuals. Estimating the number of priests and deacons active in the same period at 110,000, the report concluded that approximately 4% have faced these allegations. The report noted that "It is impossible to determine from our surveys what percent of all actual cases of abuse that occurred between 1950 and 2002 have been reported to the Church and are therefore in our dataset." The Augustin Cardinal Bea, S.J. specializes in abuse counseling and is considered an expert on clerical abuse; he states "approximately 4% of priests during the past half century (and mostly in the 1960s and 1970s) have had a sexual experience with a minor." According to "Newsweek" magazine, this figure is similar to the rate of frequency in the rest of the adult population.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 2014, the Permanent Representative of the Holy See to the UN, Silvano Maria Tomasi, appeared before the Committee against Torture and reported that during the previous ten years, 3420 cases of abuse against minors had been investigated and 884 priests had been removed from their positions and reduced to lay status. Allegations of and convictions for sexual abuse by clergy have occurred in many countries. There are no accurate figures available on the number of sexual abuse cases in different regions. But, in 2002 "The Boston Globe" reported, "clearly the issue has been most prominent in the United States." The US is the country with the highest number of reported Catholic sex abuse cases.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: After the United States, the country with the next highest number of reported cases is Ireland. A significant number of cases have also been reported in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and countries in Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In response to the attention, members of the church hierarchy have argued that media coverage has been unfair, excessive, and disproportionate. According to a Pew Research Center study, in 2002 the media coverage was focused on the US, where a series in "The Boston Globe" initiated widespread coverage in the region. However, by 2010 the focus had shifted to Europe.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In September 2011, a submission was lodged with the International Criminal Court alleging that the Pope, Cardinal Angelo Sodano (Dean of the College of Cardinals), Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone (Cardinal Secretary of State), and Cardinal William Levada (then-current Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) had committed a crime against humanity by failing to prevent or punish perpetrators of rape and sexual violence in a "systematic and widespread" concealment which included failure to co-operate with relevant law enforcement agencies. In a statement to the Associated Press, the Vatican described this as a "ludicrous publicity stunt and a misuse of international judicial processes." Lawyers and law professors emphasized that the case is likely to fall outside the court's jurisdiction.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: On 13 May 2017, Pope Francis acknowledged that the Vatican had a 2,000 case backlog of sex abuse cases.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Philip Jenkins, professor at the Department of Religion and History at Penn State University, questioned the theses of increased sexual abuse among priests, saying the percentage of priests accused of molesting minors is 1.8%, much of which is not about pedophilia alone.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In the late 1940s, the American priest Gerald Fitzgerald founded the Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete, a religious order that treats Roman Catholic priests who struggle with personal difficulties such as substance abuse and sexual misconduct. In a series of letters and reports to high-ranking Catholic leaders starting in the 1950s, Fitzgerald warned of substantial problems with abusive priests. He wrote, for example, "[sexual abuse] offenders were unlikely to change and should not be returned to ministry." He discussed the problem with Pope Paul VI (1963–1978) and "in correspondence with several bishops".


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 2001, the Vatican first required that sex abuse cases be reported to the Vatican hierarchy; before that, it left management of the cases to local dioceses. After the 2002 revelation by "The Boston Globe" that cases of abuse were widespread in the Church in Massachusetts and elsewhere, "The Dallas Morning News" did a year-long investigation. It reported in 2004 that even after these revelations and public outcry, the institutional church had moved allegedly abusive priests out of the countries where they had been accused but assigned them again to "settings that bring them into contact with children, despite church claims to the contrary". Among the investigation's findings was that nearly half of 200 cases "involved clergy who tried to elude law enforcement."


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: The cases received significant media and public attention in the United States, Ireland where abuse was reported as widespread, and Canada, and throughout the world. In response to the attention, members of the church hierarchy have argued that media coverage has been excessive and disproportionate. According to a Pew Research Center study, media coverage was generated mostly in the United States, beginning in 2002, with a series in "The Boston Globe" that published hundreds of news reports. By contrast, in 2010 much of the reporting focused on child abuse in Europe.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Different scandals of sexual abuse involving members of the Catholic clergy have been made public in Costa Rica, as more than ten priests have been formally accused. However, one of the most recent and most dramatic events due to its media exposure occurred in 2019 when judicial accusations against the priests Mauricio Víquez and Manuel Guevara led to the search and seizure of the Episcopal Conference by the Judicial Investigation Department on 7 March 2019. Víquez, who was the Episcopal Conference's spokesman and professor at the University of Costa Rica, was dismissed from the clerical state by the Holy See and the process for removal of his university tenure was started. He fled in January 2019 and was a fugitive overseas reason for which an international arrest warrant was issued against him. He was captured in Mexico in August 2019 and condemned in 2022 to 20 years in prison for rape and abuse of 11-year-old boy. In the case of Guevara, parish priest of Santo Domingo de Heredia, was arrested by the authorities.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Another priest wanted for sexual abuse, Jorge Arturo Morales Salazar, was arrested by the authorities while trying to escape through the Panama border and held on preventive custody. Other notable cases are Father Enrique Delgado, popular figure due to his TV show "La Hora Santa" (The Holy Hour) who was sentenced to prison for rape and sexual abuse against three minors, Father Enrique Vazquez who escaped the country in 1998 apparently with financial help from San Carlos' bishop Angel Sancasimiro, was captured serving as a priest in Honduras in 2007, but the charges couldn't be pressed due to the age difference of less than 28 years between the victims of 13-16 years and the perpetrator of 20 years, and Father Minor Calvo, another TV personality with his TV show "An encounter with Christ" and as director of the Catholic radio station Radio maria who was found in a car with a teenager in the La Sabana Park at midnight. Although Calvo was convicted for corruption and embezzlement he was not convicted for sexual abuse.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Józef Wesołowski, a Polish citizen who had been a nuncio (papal ambassador), was laicized in 2014 because of accusations of sexual abuse of minors during the five years he served as Vatican ambassador in Santo Domingo. The Holy See refused to waive his diplomatic immunity in order to allow him to be judged in Santo Domingo, but charged him before the Vatican criminal tribunal. However, in July 2015 the trial was postponed due to Wesolowski's ill health; he died on 27 August 2015 before a trial could be held.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In November 2015, in El Salvador's sole non-military Catholic diocese, the Archdiocese of San Salvador, Fr. Jesus Delgado, biographer and personal secretary to Archbishop Oscar Romero was dismissed by the Archdiocese after investigations revealed that he had molested a girl, now 42 years of age, when she was between the ages of 9 and 17. Due to the statute of limitations, Delgado could not face criminal charges. In December 2016, a canonical court convicted Delgado and two other El Salvador priests, Francisco Galvez and Antonio Molina, of committing acts of sex abuse between the years 1980 and 2000 and laicized them from the priesthood.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In November 2019, the Archdiocese acknowledged sex abuse committed by Fr. Leopoldo Sosa Tolentino in 1994 and issued a public apology to his victim. Tolentino was suspended from ministry and began the canonical trial process. Another El Salvador priest José Adonay Chicas Campos was laicized in 2019 after pleading guilty to sex abuse in a criminal trial at the Vatican and sentenced to 16 years in prison.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 2018 Pope Francis accepted the resignation of auxiliary bishop Juan José Pineda, a close aide of Cardinal Maradiaga, following revelations of sexual abuse of the seminarians and financial scandal.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In the late 1980s, allegations were made of physical and sexual abuse committed by members of the Christian Brothers, who operated the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's, Newfoundland. The government, police, and church had colluded in an attempt to cover up the allegations, but in December 1989 they were reported in the "St. John's Sunday Express". Eventually more than 300 former pupils came forward with allegations of physical and sexual abuse at the orphanage. The religious order that ran the orphanage filed for bankruptcy in the face of numerous civil lawsuits seeking damages. Since the Mount Cashel scandal, a number of priests across Canada have been accused of sexual abuse.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In August 2005, Father Charles Henry Sylvestre of Belle River, Ontario pleaded guilty to 47 counts of sexual abuse of females, aged between nine and fourteen years old, between 1952 and 1989. Sylvestre was given a sentence in October 2006 of three years, and died 22 January 2007 after three months in prison.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 2011, Basilian priest Father William Hodgson Marshall, who died in 2014 at the age of 92, pled guilty to 16 counts of indecent assault of minors and one count of sexual assault for incidents that occurred between 1952 and 1986 when he taught at Assumption and Holy Names high schools in Windsor, plus other Catholic high schools in Toronto and Sudbury. He was sentenced to two years in prison, and served 16 months of his sentence before being released on probation in 2012. However, Marshall, who was given the nickname "Happy Hands" in the 1950s due to his tendency to touch students, later pled guilty to more sex abuse charges stemming from his time in Saskatchewan. On 30 April 2020, the Canadian Supreme Court rejected an appeal from the Basilian Fathers of Toronto to not give Marshall victim Rod MacLeod a required payment of just over $2.5 million, including $500,000 in punitive damages, stemming from a sexual-assault case in the 1960s. The payment was first ordered by a jury in April 2018.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: On 25 August 2020, British Columbia justice David Crossin ordered the office of the Bishop of Kamloops and retired priest Erlindo Molon, who was by then 88 years old, to pay $844,140 in damages to Rosemary Anderson, who claimed Molon raped her 70 to 100 times in 1976 and 1977, beginning when she was 26 years old. Anderson claimed Molon offered her counselling to help her deal with her father's death. During the lawsuit, former Kamloops bishop, and future Vancouver Archbishop, Adam Exner now 90, conceded on the stand that Molon “was molesting people,” including Anderson. Exner also stated that Molon was not stripped of his priesthood status until after Anderson told him that Molon raped her and suggested that she marry him.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: By 1912, thousands of First Nations children attended residential schools, many of which were run by the Catholic Church. In 1990, Manitoba leader Phil Fontaine revealed that he had been sexually and physically abused in a Catholic residential school. He claimed that sexual abuse was common in residential schools in general. "In my grade three class, if there were 20 boys, every single one of them would have experienced what I experienced. They would have experienced some aspect of sexual abuse."


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Canadian author and artist, Michael D. O'Brien, has also spoken out about his painful experiences of residential school abuse, revealing that "the sexual exploitation of the young has been epidemic in Catholic residential schools and orphanages."


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Of the Catholic sexual abuse cases in Latin America, the most widely known is the sexual scandal of Father Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legion of Christ, a Roman Catholic congregation in 1970s. He had been sexually abusing at least 60 minors and fathered six children with three women. The revelations took place in 1998 after the Legion spent more than a decade denying allegations and criticizing the victims who claimed abuse. He was forced to retire from the ministry by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Luis Esteban Zavala Rodríguez, a priest in Irapuato, was condemned to 65 years and three months in prison and fined MXN $61,000 in January 2021 for raping a 12-year-old girl as she took catechism classes at a church in the city.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: The United States has been the focus of many scandals and subsequent reforms. BishopAccountability.org, an "online archive established by lay Catholics", have reported over 3,000 civil lawsuits against the church, some of these cases have resulted in multimillion-dollar settlements with many claimants, totaling more than $3 billion since 1950.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: While the church in the United States claims to have addressed the issue, some disagree. Mark Honigsbaum of "The Guardian" wrote in 2006 that, "despite the National Review Board's own estimates that there have been some 5,000 abusive priests in the US, to date 150 have been successfully prosecuted." Some critics of the church, such as Patrick Wall, attribute this to a lack of cooperation from the church. In California, for example, the archdiocese has sought to block the disclosure of confidential counseling records on two priests, arguing that such action would violate their First Amendment right on religious protection. Paul Lakeland claims Church leaders who enabled abuse were too frequently careless about their own accountability and the accountability of perpetrators.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 2004, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange settled nearly 90 cases for $100 million. In July 2007, its parent archdiocese, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles reached a settlement of 45 lawsuits for $60 million. By July 2007, a $660 million agreement was made with more than 500 alleged victims.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In September 2007, the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego reached a $198.1 million "agreement with 144 childhood sexual abuse victims".


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In July 2008, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver agreed "to pay $5.5 million to settle 18 claims of childhood sexual abuse."


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 1998, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas paid $30.9 million to twelve victims of one priest ($ in present-day terms). From 2003 to 2009, nine other major settlements, involving over 375 cases with 1551 claimants/victims, resulted in payments of over US$1.1 billion. The Associated Press estimated the settlements of sex abuse cases from 1950 to 2007 totaled more than $2 billion. Addressing "a flood of abuse claims" five dioceses (Tucson, Arizona; Spokane, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Davenport, Iowa, and San Diego) got bankruptcy protection. Eight Catholic dioceses have declared bankruptcy due to sex abuse cases from 2004 to 2011.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Although bishops had been sending sexually abusive priests to facilities such as those operated by the Servants of the Paraclete since the 1950s, there was scant public discussion of the problem until the mid-1960s. Even then, most of the discussion was held amongst the Catholic hierarchy with little or no coverage in the media. A public discussion of sexual abuse of minors by priests took place at a meeting sponsored by the National Association for Pastoral Renewal held on the campus of the University of Notre Dame in 1967, to which all U.S. Catholic bishops were invited.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Various local and regional discussions of the problem were held by Catholic bishops in later years. However, it was not until the 1980s that discussion of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clerics began to be covered as a phenomenon in the news media of the United States. According to the Catholic News Service, public awareness of the sexual abuse of children in the United States and Canada emerged in the late 1970s and the 1980s as an outgrowth of the growing awareness of physical abuse of children in society.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In September 1983, the" National Catholic Reporter " published an article on the topic. The subject gained wider national notoriety in October 1985 when Louisiana priest Gilbert Gauthe pleaded guilty to 11 counts of molestation of boys. After the coverage of Gauthe's crimes subsided, the issue faded to the fringes of public attention until the mid-1990s, when the issue was again brought to national attention after a number of books on the topic were published.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 2002, "The Boston Globe"s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of sexual abuse cases involving Catholic priests drew the attention, first of the United States and ultimately the world, to the problem. Other victims began to come forward with their own allegations of abuse, resulting in more lawsuits and criminal cases. Since then, the problem of clerical abuse of minors has received significantly more attention from the Church hierarchy, law enforcement agencies, government and the news media. One study shows that the Boston Globe coverage of the cases "had a negative and long-lasting effect" on Catholic school enrollment, and explained "about two-thirds of the decline in Catholic schooling."


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 2003, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee authorized payments of as much as US$20,000 to sexually abusive priests to convince them to leave the priesthood.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In July 2003, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville paid $25.7 million to "settle child sexual-abuse allegations made in 240 lawsuits naming 34 priests and other church workers." In 2003, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston also settled a large case for $85 million with 552 alleged victims. In 2004, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange settled nearly 90 cases for $100 million.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas paid $30.9 million in 1998 to twelve victims of one priest ($ in present-day terms).


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In April 2007, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon agreed to a $75 million settlement with 177 claimants and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle agreed to a $48 million settlement with more than 160 victims. In July 2007, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles reached a $660 million agreement with more than 500 alleged victims, in December 2006, the archdiocese had a settlement of 45 lawsuits for $60 million.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: As recently as 2011, Fr Curtis Wehmeyer was allowed to work as a priest in Minnesota despite many people having reported concern about his sexual compulsion and suspicious behavior with boys. Wehmeyer was employed as a priest without proper background checks. Wehmeyer was later convicted of sexually abusing two boys. After Wehmeyer's arrest there were complaints the responsible clergy were more concerned with how to spin the story in a favorable light than in helping victims.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In July 2018, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. resigned from the College of Cardinals (the first Cardinal to do so since 1927) following allegations of abuse and attempted homosexual rape at a seaside villa. In August, a "systematic coverup" of sex abuse by more than 300 priests in Pennsylvania parishes was revealed. Reviewers of the situation indicated that many more victims and perpetrators were likely undiscovered. In March 2018, Archbishop Anthony Apuron of Guam was removed from office by the Vatican. Apuron had been accused of sexually molesting altar boys in the late 1970s. Moreover, in the latest case, priest Louis Brouillard was charged for having raped altar boys during "sleepovers" as a teenager. Over fifteen priests, two archbishops, and a bishop have been recognized in sex abuse cases, from the 1950s until the 1990s.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Addressing "a flood of abuse claims" five dioceses (Tucson, Arizona; Spokane, Washington; Portland, Oregon.; Davenport, Iowa, and San Diego) got bankruptcy protection. Eight Catholic diocese have declared bankruptcy due to sex abuse cases from 2004 to 2011.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In the United States, the 2004 "John Jay Report," commissioned from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and funded by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), was based on volunteer surveys completed by the Roman Catholic dioceses in the United States. The 2004 "John Jay Report" was based on a study of 10,667 allegations against 4,392 priests accused of engaging in sexual abuse of a minor between 1950 and 2002.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: On 29 December 2019, it was revealed that numerous bishops across the United States withheld hundreds of names from their accused clergy list.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: On 6 March 2020, a joint investigation conducted by Propublica and the "Houston Chronicle" was published which revealed that the Catholic Church transferred more than 50 credibly accused U.S. Catholic clergy to other countries after sex abuse accusations surfaced against them.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: The Holy See Secretariat of State's report, published in November 2020, stated that Pope John Paul II was made aware of allegations against McCarrick but did not believe them, and that Benedict XVI, after receiving further complaints, also made little effort to stop McCarrick. The report absolved Pope Francis, but placed blame on both Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI for Theodore McCarrick's rise in power they both were aware of sex abuse allegation against him.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 2009, priest Julio César Grassi was sentenced to 15 year in prison for two counts of sexual abuse against two minors during his time at a foundation for children in need.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: On 17 August 2019, Argentina Bishop Sergio Buenanueva of San Francisco, Cordoba, acknowledged the history of sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Argentina. Buenanueva, who was labeled as a "Prelate" for the Argentine Catholic Church, also stated that the church's sex abuse crisis in Argentina, which is Pope Francis' native country, was "just beginning".


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: A three-judge court cleared former priest Carlos Eduardo José, 62, of sexual abuse charges from 1999 to 2008 in Caseros, Buenos Aires because the statute of limitations had expired by March 9, 2021. The accusations date from 2009 but the church took no action until 2019. Three other complaints against the same priest by other students were earlier dismissed by other courts on statute of limitations grounds.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Early in 2018, Pope Francis met with Bishop Juan Barros from Chile concerning the charges of sexual abuse by Fr. Fernando Karadima, and accusations of cover-up by Barros. Many laypersons and victims of sexual abuse came forward to condemn Barros for covering up the sex crimes. When Pope Francis visited the bishop, he was asked by local reporters about the sexual abuse scandal surrounding Barros. Pope Francis quickly condemned the charges a "slander", stating, "The day they bring me proof against Bishop Barros, I will speak. There is not one piece of evidence against him. It is calumny. Is that clear?"


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Following the pope's defense of Barros, Boston Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley, a key Vatican advisor on clergy abuse, acknowledged that Francis' comments about Barros were "a source of great pain" for victims. Francis then appointed Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta to investigate the allegations of abuse in the Chilean church. Upon receiving Scicluna's report, Francis wrote on 12 April that he had "made serious mistakes in the assessment and perception of the situation, especially because of a lack of truthful and balanced information". He also declared that the Chilean church hierarchy was collectively responsible for "grave defects" in handling sexual abuse cases and the resulting loss of credibility suffered by the church. Following Francis' remarks, 33 Chilean bishops offered their resignation. Pope Francis later apologized to the victims of the sex abuse scandal. In late April 2018, three victims were invited to the Vatican.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: On 11 June 2018, Francis accepted the resignations of Bishop Juan Barros Madrid of Osorno, and on 28 June those of Bishops Horacio Valenzuela of Talca and Alejandro Goić Karmelić of Rancagua. In September, he accepted those of those of Carlos Eduardo Pellegrín Barrera of Chillán and Cristián Contreras Molina of San Felipe.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: On 13 October 2018, Pope Francis laicized two former archbishops: Francisco José Cox Huneeus of La Serena and Marco Antonio Órdenes Fernández of Iquique.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In March 2019, Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati Andrello resigned as required upon turning 75 amid allegations of sexual abuse.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: On 21 August 2019, Chile's nuncio announced that the Vatican had launched an investigation into claims that Bernardino Piñera, an influential Chilean priest who is also a paternal uncle of Chilean President Sebastian Piñera, sexually abused at least one child 50 years prior.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 2021, an investigation by Vorágine and CONNECTAS revealed a list of 43 priests from the Archdiocese of Medellín accused of child molestation and sexual abuse, only three of whom had been sentenced by justice. In 2022, the AFP news agency reported one of the most serious cases revealed to date in the country, involving a network of pederasty that would include at least 38 abusive priests in the city of Villavicencio, of which 19 of them had been suspended two years before by the Vatican in the midst of the canonical investigation. The Constitutional Court in a historic decision had ordered in Judgment T-091 of 2020 the Colombian Catholic Church to reveal its "secret file" of complaints, to journalists or citizens who required it. From that date the hierarchs of the church have not fully complied with that instruction.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 2002, Mathew N. Schmalz noted that Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in India are generally not spoken about openly, stating "you would have gossip and rumors, but it never reaches the level of formal charges or controversies."


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 2014, Raju Kokkan, the vicar of the Saint Paul's Church in Thaikkattussery, Thrissur, Kerala, was arrested on charges of raping a nine-year-old girl. According to Kerala Police, Kokkan had raped the child on several different occasions, including at least thrice in his office during the month of April. Kokkan promised to gift the child expensive vestments for her Holy Communion ceremony before sexually assaulting her. The abuse was revealed after the victim informed her parents that she had been raped by Kokkan on 25 April 2014. The priest subsequently fled to Nagercoil in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, and was arrested by police on 5 May. Following the arrest, the Thrissur Archdiocese stated that the vicar had been removed from his position within the Church. Between February and April 2014, three other Catholic priests were arrested in the state of Kerala on charges of raping minors.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 2016, the Catholic Church reappointed a convicted and jailed priest in the Ootacamund Diocese in Tamil Nadu, with little regard for victims rights and children's safety.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 2017, Father Robin Vadakkumchery of St Sebastian church in Kannur was arrested in Kochi on the charge of repeatedly raping a 15-year-old girl who later gave birth to a child. The baby is reported to have been taken to an orphanage without the mother's consent. He has been sentenced to 20 years in prison by a special court constituted under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 in Thalassery.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 2018, after much public outcry, Bishop Franco Mulakkal was arrested on 21 September by the Kerala Police. The Vatican had just 'temporarily' relieved him from his pastoral responsibilities. The nun who complained against Bishop Franco had mentioned to the police that he had repeatedly had unnatural sex with her on multiple occasions between 2014 and 2016.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 2013, Singapore-born psychotherapist and author Jane Leigh, a single mother of two who now lives in Melbourne, alleged in her autobiography "My Nine Lives Last" that she was sexually abused by Roman Catholic priests when she was a teenager. Starting from when she was 12 years old, she was abused for two and half years during the secluded one-on-one outings by a 34-year-old priest whom she initially met at neighbourhood mass held at her home when she was 12, he allegedly did so while picking or dropping her off when her parents were at work. After she reported the matter to her mother, she was berated for tempting the priest and sent to another Catholic priest for counselling. Consequently, church stated that they will conduct the investigations.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In 2022, a prominent member of the Catholic order in his mid-60s was jailed 5 years for sexually abusing 2 teenage boys on multiple occasions. The offences took place between 2005 and 2007. The identity of the perpetrator and his victims were not revealed due to a gag order imposed by the court. Additionally, the perpetrator's religious superior was issued a written advisory by the police for not reporting the offences to the police after learning about them.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In November 2010, an independent group in Austria that operates a hotline to help people exit the Catholic Church released a report documenting physical, sexual, and emotional abuse perpetrated by Austrian priests, nuns, and religious officials. The report is based on hotline calls from 91 women (28%) and 234 men (72%), who named 422 perpetrators of both sexes, 63% of whom were ordained priests.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In June 2010, Belgian police raided the Belgian Catholic Church headquarters in Brussels, seizing a computer and records of a Church commission investigating allegations of child abuse. This was part of an investigation into hundreds of claims that had been raised about alleged child sexual abuse committed by Belgian clergy. The claims emerged after Roger Vangheluwe, who had been the Bishop of Bruges, resigned in 2009 after admitting that he was guilty of sexual molestation. The Vatican protested against the raids. In September 2010, an appeals court ruled that the raids were illegal.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: There are three main known cases of sexual abuse in Croatian Catholic Churches: in Archdiocese of Zagreb, Archdiocese of Rijeka and Archdiocese of Zadar.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In Archdiocese of Zagreb guilty convicted priest was Ivan Čuček (2000), in Archdiocese of Rijeka Drago Ljubičić (2011), and in Archdiocese of Zadar Nediljko Ivanov (2012).


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the Archbishop of Lyon, was convicted on 7 March 2019 of failing to report sex abuse allegedly committed by priest Bernard Preynat and was given a six-month suspended prison sentence. On 5 July 2019, Pope Francis laicized the priest whom Barbarin was accused of protecting. Despite Barbarin's conviction being overturned on appeal, the scandal resulted in Pope Francis accepting his resignation as Archbishop of Lyon on 6 March 2020.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: On 14 January 2020, Preynat, who was previously convicted on another sex abuse charge in 2016, confessed during his criminal trial that he had a habit of "caressing" Boy Scouts he oversaw when he served as scout chaplain in the Lyon suburb of Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon and that he did so in a way which brought him "sexual pleasure". On 15 January, Preynat, who is accused of molesting 80 Boy Scouts between 1971 and 1991, stated that the Vatican let him complete his seminary education for becoming a priest after he had undergone therapy at the Vinatier Psychiatric Hospital between 1967 and 1968, and that he had warned that Vatican about his sexual impulses. After Preynat's 2016 conviction for abuse committed between 1986 and 1991, which also resulted in only an 18-month suspended prison sentence, Barbarin reportedly appointed him to a higher position within the Archdiocese of Lyon.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: On 9 November 2019, the Conference of French Bishops approved a resolution agreeing that every French Catholic Bishop would pay compensation for abuse which took place in the French Catholic Church. On 16 March 2020, Preynat received a five-year prison sentence after being convicted of sexually assaulting boy scouts. On 11 November 2020, Jean-Marc Sauve, the head of the independent commission set up by the Catholic Church in France to investigate claims of sex abuse, acknowledged his commission's sex abuse hotline, which closed on 31 October 2020, received 6,500 calls reporting sex


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: abuse in a period of 17 months. On 16 December 2020, former Apostolic nuncio to France Luigi Ventura received a suspended eight-month prison sentence for sexually harassment, which includes probation and a required payment of €13,000 to the victims, as well as €9,000 in legal fees.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: On 3 October 2021, an independent commission set up by the Bishops' Conference of France released a report estimating that the ranks of the 115,000 Catholic priests and other religious officials in France since the 1950s have included about 3,000 abusers. The report estimates that 216,000 children were abused by Catholic priests between 1950 and 2020, and that accounting for abuse by other Catholic church employees increases the total number to around 330,000. Around 80% of the victims were boys.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In September 2018, a report by the German Catholic Church found that 3,677 children in Germany, mostly 13 or younger, had been sexually abused by Catholic clergy between 1946 and 2014. In August 2020, at 1,412 people in Germany accused members of Catholic religious orders of sexually abusing them as children, teenagers, and as wards. At least 654 monks, nuns and other members of religious orders were accused of abuse. Around 80% of the victims were male and 20% female. The orders were among the last Catholic church organizations in Germany to address sex abuse. Despite the facts that women make up the largest membership of German religious orders, male religious order members had the largest share of sex abuse accusations.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In May 2021, Cardinal Reinhard Marx offered his resignation, citing collective failure in dealing with sexual abuse as his main reason. Subsequently, Pope Francis denied his offer, while emphasizing the importance of Marx's repentance in his subsequent tenure.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In the Republic of Ireland, starting in the 1990s, there were a series of criminal cases and government enquiries related to allegations that priests had abused hundreds of minors over previous decades. State-ordered investigations documented "tens of thousands of children from the 1940s to the 1990s" who suffered abuse, including sexual abuse at the hands of priests, nuns, and church staff in three dioceses.


title: Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

text: In many cases, senior clergy had moved priests accused of abuse to other parishes. By 2010, a number of in-depth judicial reports had been published, but with relatively few prosecutions. The abuse was occasionally made known to staff at the Department of Education, the police, and other government bodies. They have said that prosecuting clergy was extremely difficult given the "Catholic ethos" of the Irish Republic. In addition, in 2004, the Christian Brothers had sued for a civil settlement that barred prosecution of any of its members or the naming of any Christian Brother in the government investigatory report. Christian Brothers had a higher number of allegations made against their order than were made against others. Neither were any victims named in the report.