The Swiss church becomes the latest in Europe to reckon with the abuse scandal as researchers fear findings are merely the ‘tip of the iceberg’. A sweeping, year-long study of sex abuse by Catholic priests and others in Switzerland has turned up more than 1,000 cases since the mid-20th century, reports Euronews.
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.
The authors said in a statement 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.
With few exceptions, those accused of wrongdoing were male. Nearly three-quarters of the documents examined showed the sexual abuse involved minors; 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% to be identified by gender, according to the study.
