The Catholic Church has spent billions of dollars settling claims from sexual abuse cases. NCR first exposed the abuse scandal in stories first reported 40 years ago. In 2025, NCR is investigating the costs to Catholics, parishes and the church in its series "The Reckoning."
If you have any tips, leads, suggestions or information about the costs of the sexual abuse scandal on Catholics, orders, parishes, communities, dioceses or the church, please email [email protected] with the subject line "The Reckoning."
The attorney who defended since-defrocked priest Gilbert Gauthe against child sex abuse allegations and later co-authored a confidential report warning U.S. bishops about the growing crisis of clergy abuse, died Feb. 5.
The New York Archdiocese is seeking a universal settlement with abuse survivors, with a deal that could break legal gridlock involving the archdiocese and its insurer Chubb, which has refused to cover abuse claims.
As we face a changing past, Jason Berry looks back on years of reporting on clerical abuse, and reflects on the influence of the beloved dead: a jazz-playing Jesuit, and Berry's daughter Ariel, whose radical innocence radiates.
"I don't want to hurt Jesuit Prep," said one former student alleging abuse by a priest at the Dallas high school. But he and other survivors wanted to see accountability and change.
Bernard Joseph and Marcus Hamilton are serving life terms for murdering a priest. Today, they are claimants in the New Orleans Archdiocese bankruptcy, alleging years of abuse by that priest and another Josephite.
In 2020, New Orleans banker James Adams was president of the Catholic Community Foundation when Archbishop Gregory Aymond ousted him. Overnight, Adams became a church enemy because of what a priest did to him as a boy.
Forty years ago this June, the National Catholic Reporter began publishing stories about U.S. Catholic priests sexually abusing children. This is an NCR editorial that ran with that first coverage in 1985.
While scandals can shake us, the vast majority of our priests and parishioners strive to live the compassion of Jesus, writes Fr. Dave Mercer. Though this rarely makes the news, it is a more full picture of who and what the Catholic Church is.
After four years of bankruptcy proceedings, New York's Rockville Centre Diocese agreed to settle claims from people who said priests and others in the diocese sexually abused them. Survivors spoke to NCR about the settlement.
The Rockville Centre Diocese's 136 parishes paid $53 million of the approximately $323 million payout to victims of sexual abuse by priests and adults. Every parish filed for bankruptcy and contributed, whether or not they were being sued.
