Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, published a 205-page document with the names of clergy and other workers at the organization accused of sexual abuse. The disclosure came after an independent investigation revealed that the church had hidden allegations against pastors and staff for years.
“This list is being released for the first time as an initial but important step towards combating the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing convention reform,” SBC said in a statement.
An investigation released on Sunday revealed that for nearly two decades, victims who reported sexual abuse faced “resistance, blocking and outright hostility” from members of the convention’s executive committee.
The nearly 300-page document alleges church leaders covered up the grievances and allowed clergy identified as abusers to continue as pastors or in other authoritative roles. Lawsuits against the convention were dismissed as opportunistic and without merit. The report was conducted for nearly a year by a research firm.
This Thursday (27), SBC said it expects “churches to proactively use the list [com nomes de acusados de abuso sexual] to protect and care for the most vulnerable.” The document contains hundreds of names and details of charges, convictions and cases that have not been reported to the police, including abuses against children as young as five years old.
In 2019, an investigation by two Texas newspapers revealed more than 700 victims of sexual abuse at SBC since 1998. The convention has thousands of churches and says it has 13 million members in the US, most of them in the south of the country, and more than 40 millions around the world.
The scandal echoes that faced by the Catholic Church, which was shaken when the Boston Globe newspaper revealed in 2002 that the church had covered up for decades cases of sexual abuse involving clergy.
