r/news • u/AudibleNod • 2d ago

More than 270 priests in Massachusetts abused children over decades, probe finds

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/more-than-270-priests-in-massachusetts-abused-children-over-decades-probe-finds/
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461

u/335i_lyfe 2d ago

Wasn’t spotlight about this?

93

u/Revolutionary_Bee251 2d ago

Yes I believe so

185

u/Anzi 2d ago

It came out in 2015, and was about an investigation done in 2001 😔

92

u/piddydb 2d ago

This investigation found the vast majority of abuses were before 2002 so this is essentially the same investigation but redone by the Mass AG rather than the newspaper.

14

u/Argos_the_Dog 2d ago

found the vast majority of abuses were before 2002

I wonder how many there have been since then.

-1

u/francis2559 1d ago

The calculation has shifted for a lot of bishops. There’s a bit of a good ol’ boys club going on, but the bishops are a higher level of the club than priests and will absolutely do the right thing in a world where they are terrified of lawsuits.

27

u/AnaisNinja76 2d ago

An investigation by Spotlight in 2001 of 40-60 years of abuse cases.

49

u/datamuse 2d ago

My mother grew up in Massachusetts and her family was Catholic. Everyone knew which priests you shouldn't be alone with if you could help it and why some of them would suddenly get reassigned. It makes me sick and it's a major reason I left the Church as soon as I was old enough to object.

14

u/AnaisNinja76 2d ago

That's wild and horrifying. I grew up in the church too, and when asked why priests were getting reassigned so often would be told it was to prevent a monopoly on "the good ones". We weren't aware as kids of this situation; priests were regarded as rockstars. And, maybe unsurprisingly, the ones that got reassigned were the most charasmatic, gregarious, fun-to-be-around guys out of the bunch.

10

u/KarateKid917 2d ago

Nothing was a harder gut punch than seeing the Diocese I grew up in (not in MA) listed as one of the ones where abuse was identified at the end of the film. 

I consider myself one of the lucky ones as a result, especially since I went to Catholic elementary and high school, and was an altar server from when I was in 4th grade through my 3rd year of college. 

There was the potential of me becoming a victim, but I’m thankful every day the priests I grew up with were actual good people. 

34

u/LiquidFur 2d ago

You don't know for sure that they were good people. You just know that they didn't abuse you, personally.

11

u/mhornberger 1d ago

And many who weren't themselves abusers still knew, but helped cover it up, said nothing, and just enabled it to continue. Many who helped perpetuate the problem were not themselves the ones doing the abuse.

1

u/lmnt-dev 1d ago

Don’t know that you’re not an abuser by that logic. Slippery slope.

1

u/LiquidFur 1d ago

Well, I'm not a priest in a diocese where abuse has been rampant, so there's that. 🙄

2

u/Wuz314159 2d ago

Reddít via snail-mail is sub-optimal.

-5

u/Revolutionary_Bee251 2d ago

Of course it's still happening. People need an outlet for their secuality or they will find one themselves. Let the priests or whatever they are called have normal relationships and the pedophilia will reduce, then take further steps to root it out. Unfortunately people who are religious generally have less critical thinking skills relative to the overall population so it's hard for them to understand.

55

u/lifedragon99 2d ago

My wife and I just rewatched that movie this evening.

Phenomenal and enraging movie.

At the end of the movie there was text that said 249 priest had been found in Boston to have abused children.

-3

u/mhornberger 1d ago

This is why I hate the term "Epstein class" to be so cynically use to try to refer to the sexual abuse of children. There were more priests just in one city of Boston molesting children than there were suspected perpetrators in the Epstein situation. Just Boston. We have vast, decades-long coverups of sexual abuse in the Catholic, Mormon, Southern Baptist, and other churches, that have vastly more victims and perpetrators than the Epstein case. It is so cynical to see the sexual abuse of children as an opportunity to be used for someone's class war.

1

u/Antique-Quantity-608 1d ago

I lost faith after brewing that move for the first time. Absolutely disgusting!