Over 1,000 cases of sexual abuse in Swiss Catholic Church since mid-20th century

Swiss Church faces reckoning as study finds 1,000 cases of sex abuse since mid-20th century; 56% of victims male, 39% female; most cases during pastoral care, some during confessions; church officials often transferred accused clerics to avoid prosecution, placing interests of church before victims.

A sweeping, year-long study of sex abuse by Catholic priests and others in Switzerland published on September 12 has turned up more than 1,000 cases since the mid-20th century, as the Swiss church becomes the latest in Europe to reckon with the abuse scandal.

With few exceptions, those accused of wrongdoing were all male. Nearly three-fourths of the documents examined showed the sexual abuse involved minors.

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The report, commissioned by the Swiss Conference of Bishops and led by two University of Zurich historians, offers a deep look at sexual abuse and harassment that has confounded the Catholic Church across the globe in recent decades — upending the lives of many victims and their families, and tarnishing the image of the institution.

The authors said in a statement that they identified 1,002 “situations of sexual abuse,” including accusations against 510 people. The abuse, they wrote, affected 921 people.

“The situations identified surely amount to only the tip of the iceberg,” said the historians Monika Dommann and Marietta Meier in a statement.

Among other findings, which were admittedly not exhaustive, over half — 56% — of the cases of sexual abuse involved men or boys. Some 39% of victims were women or girls, while sourcing did not allow for the remaining 5% percent to be identified by gender, according to the study.