Pope Benedict defrocked nearly 400 priests in two years, according to papers obtained by the Associated Press on Friday.
Around 170 priests were removed in 2008/2009; a further 230 were defrocked in 2011/2012 – the last year for which figures are available. Surprisingly, no figures were published for 2010 and that was the year in which the scandal really hit the media.
Thousands of case were alleged , and over 500 were reported to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the body in the Catholic Church responsible for dealing with such matters.
Prior to 2008 the Vatican only revealed the number of cases of sexual abuse reported to the Congregation; it did not give details of the number of priests discharged.
The document was prepared from data the Vatican had been collecting and was compiled to help the the Church defend itself before the U.N. human rights committee sitting in Geneva.
The Vatican has only ordered bishops to send cases of all credibly accused priests to Rome for review since 2001. Actually, it was the Pope – then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – who took action after he discovered that Bishops routinely moved problem priests from parish to parish rather than subject them to canonical trials.
For centuries, the church virtually protected priests who sexually abused children. They often suggested to the victims to keep quiet while they would “take care of the matter,”meaning transferring the priest to another area.
By 2008, as more and more victims came forward, the Vatican changed its attitude. Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, traveled to the United States that year and told reporters he was “mortified” by the scale of abuse and simply didn’t understand “how priests could fail in such a way.”
That year was notable for another reason. For the first time, the Vatican wrote that nothing in the church process precluded victims from reporting abuse to police.
Something else also happened in 2008. Abuse lawsuits in the U.S. naming the Holy See as a defendant were growing: In yet another first, the Vatican actually revealed that 68 priests had been defrocked.
The year 2010 was a milestone for sex abuse allegations . Thousands of cases were reported in the media across Europe. Over 500 cases were reported to the Congregation.
By 2011, with new laws in place, there was a substantial rise in the number of defrocked priests. In addition to those defrocked, another 419 priests received lower penalties for abuse-related crimes.
In 2012, the number of those defrocked dropped to 124, but another 418 new cases were reported.
Will Pope Francis continue to build on the work of his predecessor in the field of sexual abuse?
The world is waiting.