Relocating priests after sex abuse allegation ‘a mistake'

In the past, priests from the Archdiocese of Chicago with substantiated allegations of child sex abuse were sometimes relocated to another parish, but that wasn’t a cover-up, an archdiocese representative said Wednesday — the same day local church officials released documents to attorneys detailing accusations against dozens of priests.

“One of the things that we’ve learned is that we sent people off for evaluation and we got reports back saying. . .it’s safe to put them back in ministry” with monitoring, Kane said. “We found out that isn’t true. That was a mistake. We didn’t realize the depth of this terrible, terrible sin and crime . . . child sex abuse.”

Plaintiffs’ attorney Jeff Anderson responded:
“We see this as a long-standing pattern of top officials of the archdiocese making conscious choices to protect their reputation and to protect the offenders,” he said. “That means conscious choices were made to imperil the children over the years.”

To date the archdiocese has paid out about $100 million to victims of sexual abuse.

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