There Is Now a Nationwide Database of Priests Deservedly Accused of Abuse
ProPublica’s Credically Accused project provides a searchable database of Catholic priests who, as the name suggests, have been identified as alleged perpetrators. Not every church or diocese has published lists of names, but many have, and there are over 6,000 names in the database.
The President of ProPublica writes in a newsletter that it is possible to combine listings from different locations. Some clerics were quietly transferred from one place to another, but here you can search by name and see people from all over the country.
The database includes 178 dioceses (groups of churches) and orders with a total membership of 64.7 million. Another 41 dioceses and orders serving 9 million Catholics have not published the lists. On the home page of the tool, you can see which groups have and have not published lists of names.
I grew up attending Catholic churches, and I learned from a 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report that several priests I knew as a child had been credibly accused of sexual assault. I checked the ProPublica database; these names were there, although the names of the church and parish did not appear. However, they were correctly assigned to the Diocese of Pittsburgh.
“For a survivor, publishing the name of the abuser made a huge impact on the person,” says Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.org in a newsletter . “This gives confirmation. This instantly transfers much of his burden of shame and self-blame to the perpetrator who owns it. ”If there’s a name that stands out for you from childhood, consider perhaps finding it.