The Vatican Quietly Pays Out Almost $4 Billion To Child Abuse Victims
The shocking figure is based on a based on a three-month investigation of data
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The Vatican has paid out almost $4 billion in compensation to the child victims of pedophile priests according to a shocking investigation.
The Vatican has spent an eye-watering $3,994,797,060.10 to families of child abuse victims in order avoid being sued in court.
The shocking figure is based on a based on a three-month investigation of data which includes a full review of 7,800 articles gleaned from LexisNexis Academic and NCR databases.
But also from information derived from BishopAccountability.org and reports from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
According to Patheos: Up until now, “nearly $3 billion” has been the most widely cited figure by media, academics, and activists for the cost to the U.S. church for clergy sex abuse and its cover-up. NCR research shows that figure is too low, probably by as much as a billion dollars — and perhaps much more.
As a way of illustrating the magnitude of the costs to the U.S. church, if that amount were divided evenly among the nation’s 197 dioceses, each would receive nearly $20 million.
When Pope Francis addressed hundreds of bishops on the issue, he said:
I realize how much the pain of recent years has weighed upon you, and I have supported your generous commitment to bring healing to victims — in the knowledge that in healing we too are healed — and to work to ensure that such crimes will never be repeated.
On top of that, you can consider all the money the church would have gotten had these scandals not happened at all, through lost memberships and donations. That amount has been estimated by other researchers at more than $2.3 billion a year.
And yet there are still people who happily hand over their money to the Church, enroll their children in Catholic schools, and continue going back to celebrate life events like weddings and baptisms.
When you consider what that amount of money could have accomplished and what it ended up being used for, it’s appalling anyone would look at the Church and its leadership, including Pope Francis, as figures of moral authority.
