Church rocked by news of latest sex abuse investigation in US

AN INVESTIGATION into potential sexual abuse has been launched in the Archdiocese of St Louis in the US.

The attorney general for the state of Missouri confirmed the investigation a week after a damning report into widespread clergy sex abuse in Pennsylvania.

Attorney General Josh Hawley said his office had no power to force co-operation but the archdiocese had agreed to assist with the criminal probe.

“I am firmly of the view that full transparency benefits not only the public but also the Church and, most importantly, it will help us expose and address potential wrongdoing and protect the vulnerable from abuse,” he told reporters on a conference call.

St Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson, in a letter to Mr Hawley, said he had invited investigators to review the archdiocese’s files to determine whether it handled allegations of clergy sexual abuse properly.

The archdiocese has removed 27 living priests from the ministry because of sexual abuse allegations, including some who were forced out of the priesthood, Archbishop Carlson said.

He said investigators would have “unfettered access” to files and that no priests currently serving in the archdiocese had credible abuse allegations levelled against them.

“We did this for one reason, the credibility of the archdiocese,” Mr Carlson said.

The investigation initially covers only the Archdiocese of St Louis, one of five Roman Catholic dioceses in the state, Mr Hawley said.

He asked the bishops of the four other dioceses to agree to co-operate with the probe.

Jack Smith, spokesman for the Diocese of Kansas City – St Joseph, said it had not yet been formally contacted by Mr Hawley’s office, but would co-operate with any requests for a review of files.

Mr Hawley, a Republican, is running for the US Senate this year, a seat now held by Democrat Claire McCaskill.

Pennsylvania officials last week released the results of a two-year grand jury probe that found evidence that at least 1,000 people, mostly children, had been sexually abused by some 300 clergymen in the state during the past 70 years.

The most wide-ranging report on clergy sex abuse in the US said the numbers of actual victims and abusers could be much higher.

Similar reports have emerged in Europe, Australia and Chile, prompting lawsuits and investigations, sending dioceses into bankruptcy and undercutting the moral authority of the leadership of the Catholic Church, which has some 1.2 billion members around the world.

Reuters last week contacted the attorneys general of all states, excluding Pennsylvania, to see if they were considering similar actions.

Only two, in New York and New Mexico, at the time said they had taken some initial steps toward doing so.

I am firmly of the view that full transparency benefits not only the public but also the Church