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For centuries, the Catholic Church was seen as a paragon of virtue and morality, as well as a rite of passage for those born under the faith. Over the last few years, however, allegations of sexual abuse have exploded out of the closet, and thousands of individuals have come forward alleging that clergy in the Catholic Church repeatedly sexually abused them while they were young. While the Catholic Church is still standing firm and denying all allegations, more and more people continue to come out of the woodwork demanding justice and compensation for the heinous acts they suffered when they were defenseless young children. Sexual abuse has the potential to ruin an individual’s connection and trust with other people for decades, and many don’t fully recover from this. As a result, many sexual abuse legal centers have been set up across the country in order to help these individuals seek justice so that this doesn’t happen to other children currently growing up in the church. The revolution is ON, and this is your chance to right a historical wrong.

Were you sexually abused by a member of the Catholic Church or clergy when young? The Catholic Church sexual abuse attorneys at McCready Law would love to help you get the justice and compensation you truly deserve. Please give us a call NOW at (773) 309-6249 to file a claim. We have over 90 YEARS of legal experience that we’d love to put to work for you, as well as a team of ready, compassionate and understanding attorneys standing by to hear your story. We work on contingency fee basis, and what this means is that we don’t charge you a CENT as we work on your case, and only do so once we’ve recovered compensation on your behalf. Join the thousands of other sexual abuse survivors in filing a class action lawsuit for sexual abuse by the Catholic Church TODAY by calling McCready Law at xxx. Serving all sexual abuse victims countrywide.

Catholic Church Mired in Sexual Abuse Allegations 

Sexual abuse is all about control and the demeaning of an individual’s humanity. The Catholic Church has always operated without the need to be transparent as well as lacked oversight and regulation. For centuries, people have believed that if clergy were ordained by God, then they shouldn’t have to answer to ordinary mortals, and that they should be blindly trusted because they act in the best interests of the constituents. However, humans being humans, clergymen have taken advantage of the blind trust put in them by parents and other loved ones to sexually abuse children in their care and tutelage, and have used threats as well as presents and gifts to placate these children into silence and subordination.

Many parishes and private catholic schools around the country have been in the spotlight after numerous reports came out stating that thousands of individuals had been abused in these faith and educational institutions. In addition, insurance companies also released reports stating that the Protestant churches they insure are victims of anywhere from 200-270 reports of sexual abuse of minors under the age of 18.

Church Sexual Abuse Statute of Limitations

What’s troubling abuse sexual abuse lawsuits is that you only have a short time window within which to file a claim. This is because of the legal principle known as the statute of limitations which prevents you from bringing forth a claim once a certain time period has passed. The problem with this is that these acts of sexual abuse happened decades ago, and if an individual only has until age 30 to file a lawsuit, most people will be locked out of filing a claim.

Why Did Catholic Church Sexual Abuse Go on For So Long?

The Catholic Church’s veil of secrecy and centralized hierarchy has meant that perpetrators of sexual abuse have continued unabated, and have only faced transfers or light disciplinary action before being allowed to go back to their parishes. In addition, many sexual abuse cases were handled in hush-hush toned and settled quickly and on top of that, non-disclosure agreements were demanded of by the church in order for news of the same not to come out.

Clergy Sexual Abuse – How Does It Happen?

Clergy sexual abuse refers to when a clergy member uses their power, position and influence to sexually take advantage of a clergy member in a number of ways. This could be in the form of sexual touching, pressuring individuals for sexual attention, engaging clergy member in sexual conversation that is unwanted and so on.

Any form of sexual abuse is illegal, and may attract criminal charges. However, new legislation from Pennsylvania lawmakers has meant that individuals who were sexually abused may now be able to bring forth claims that can be heard in a civil court so that survivors can recover money damages.

Here are some of the most common forms of sexual abuse:

1. Attempted rape or rape
2. Unwanted touching or kissing
3. Pressuring an individual into engaging in sex
4. Providing someone with drugs or alcohol with the intent to have sexual relations with them

Catholic Sexual Abuse Statistics

According to a study performed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, the most common forms of sexual acts in clergy sexual abuse are:

• Inappropriate touching at 29.5 percent
• Touching a church member’s genital region under their clothing at 22.5 percent
• Touching a church member by placing one’s hand underneath their garments at 19.1 percent
• Kissing a church member on the mouth at 11.4 percent
• Verbalizing one’s sexual needs to a church member at 11.4 percent

The remaining percentages covered things like asking an individual to undress, touching them without engaging in sexual acts and touching genitalia without having them to remove their clothing.

The same piece of research also was able to find out that the mean age of sexual abuse victims was 12. Over 60 percent were male, and the rest, female. Sexual abuse can carry a number of negative after-effects such as anxiety, depression, sexually transmitted infections, sexual precociousness, aggressive behavior, not being able to trust others, as well as difficulty engaging in health interpersonal relationships.

Best Attorneys for Church Sexual Abuse Lawsuits – Call Us NOW

If you were abused by catholic or protestant clergymen, we’d love to help. Please give our church sexual abuse lawyers a call TODAY at (773) 309-6249 for your confidential legal consultation on how you can seek justice and financial compensation for a dark chapter in your life, and finally get the closure that you need. Thanks for trusting us, and we look forward to helping you.