Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul recently released his office’s report on child sex abuses cases in the state’s six Catholic dioceses. In the wake of the release, Catholics and non-Catholics alike responded. Many responses have involved cries of outrage toward the church and those who hold positions of power within it.
The most common criticism that has arisen from all of this comes in the form of the fair question: How can an institution that calls for individuals to put trust in it allow for such heinous acts to play out on its watch? This question shakes the faith of many sturdy Catholics, causes more on-the-fence Catholics to jump off and fuels the flames of those who are outside the faith or who are blatantly anti-Catholic.
Such responses are valid in some sense, but what about our responses when we examine other institutions that call for the community’s trust? If we are going to talk about one of them, we should talk about all of them.
After religious organizations, perhaps the next most trusted institution is the public school system. In January, the Illinois Policy Institute, an advocacy group, reported on Chicago Board of Education Inspector General Will Fletcher’s fiscal year 2022 report. The report noted 470 sexual allegations made by Chicago Public Schools students against employees in a single year.
To place things in perspective: The attorney general’s report on the Illinois Catholic Church involved 451 clerics and religious brothers who committed abuse over a 70-year period. There are those who may be quick to point out that there is a difference between 470 allegations and 451 substantiated abusers, but, of course, there is always more to unpack.
If we take the year of data for CPS and compare it with 70 years of abuse in Illinois Catholic communities, the scope of the problem in CPS is more than 70 times worse. But what about the difference between “substantiated” cases and sexual allegations? Upon further examination, this, too, can be picked apart.
Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich noted that Raoul’s office did not provide the diocese with information on its investigative process for substantiating the claims covered in the attorney general’s report but would gladly add the names to the Catholic Church’s accounting if Raoul were provide the information.
Sizing up the investigations conducted by the Illinois attorney general and the CPS inspector general is not a case of comparing apples to oranges. The attorney general’s report and the lack of disclosure of investigative process indicate a possibly heavy reliance on the personal testimony of the abused. If that is the case, then there would be less of a distinction to draw between “substantiated” cases in the Illinois Catholic Church and the allegations in CPS.
These two examples, different in many ways, shed light on a shared issue: the horrid sexual abuse happening in our country in some of our most trusted institutions. Clearly, the issue of sexual abuse is not exclusive to religious institutions, no matter how much our culture might hyperbolize it as being so. Also, if a power such as the attorney general’s office is going to review one institution with such scrutiny, it should examine other institutions with the same scrutiny to further expose this evil and help eradicate it. And finally, let these examples serve as a call for caution to those who in righteous anger call for the dismantling of the Catholic Church in the wake of abuse scandals.
If we call for action against the Catholic Church, it stands to follow that we should call for action against other institutions regarding cases of sexual abuse.
Let these two examples encourage us all to be more vigilant and concerned with protecting children and vulnerable adults against all forms of abuse.
Benjamin Colwell is from Aurora. He now works for the Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks in Alaska.
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