U.S. Southern Baptists delivery scathing checklist on sexual abuse

ATLANTA, May perchance perchance 22 (Reuters) – For a protracted time, complaints of intercourse abuse by pastors and workers within the largest U.S. Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, were both neglected or lined up by high clergy, in step with an inner checklist released on Sunday.

The virtually 300-page checklist minute print how complaints were kept as “intently guarded secrets” within the church to encourage a long way from liability, “to exclusion of all other concerns,” it said.

“In carrier to this diagram, survivors and others who reported abuse were neglected, disbelieved,” the checklist said, with church leaders covering up accusations and allowing accused clergy contributors to remain pastors or in other positions of authority.

Court cases against the church were denigrated as “opportunistic” and no longer having benefit, it said.

The yr-lengthy investigation changed into as soon as initiated by the Southern Baptist Convention in June 2021, when a stream of complaints were raised at its annual meeting. The complaints centered on sexual abuse by pastors and volunteers and the shortcoming of response by the non secular physique’s govt committee. learn extra

“We’re grieved by the findings of this investigation,” Rolland Slade, chairman of the church’s govt committee, said in an announcement.

“We’re dedicated to doing all we can to halt future cases of sexual abuse in church buildings, to make stronger our response and our care, (and) to eliminate away reporting roadblocks,” the assertion learn.

The Southern Baptist Church Convention claims better than 13 million contributors within the US and better than 40 million worldwide.

The scandal echoes the one confronted by the Roman Catholic Church, which has been rocked by allegations of sexual abuse, when the Boston Globe newspaper printed in 2002 that church hierarchy lined up sexual misconduct by its clergy for a protracted time.

The U.S. Catholic Church has paid out an estimated $3.2 billion to settle clergy abuse cases, in step with BishopAccountability.org, which tracks the sector.

In 2019, the Houston Story and the San Antonio Categorical-Recordsdata reported that better than 700 victims had been abused by pastors, leaders and volunteers in Southern Baptist congregations. learn extra

The Southern Baptist investigation changed into as soon as implemented by Guidepost Solutions LLC.

Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Paul Simao and Tom Hogue

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