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Przegląd Europejski – European Studies Quarterly

Child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in Europe. A review of official reports and takeaways for state authorities

2025, 2025, No. 3

Paulina Guzik

0000-0002-8646-1507

Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow (Cracow, Poland)

DOI

10.31338/1641-2478pe.3.25.21

Publication date

28.11.2025

Submission date

19.05.2025

Acceptance date

30.09.2025

Publishing model

open access

License type

CC BY 4.0 Int.

Field

Social sciences

Discipline

sociology

Language of publication

English, Polish

Downloads

PDF 311 KB

Article

Number of views:43

Number of downloads:33

Crossref citations:0

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Abstract

The spread of child sexual abuse around the globe is one of the most devastating problems in contemporary world. The scope of the issue is not only severe in its deep and long-lasting effects on children and their families, but also in many cases it remains hidden: it is one of the least reported crimes in society. The fact that quite often it is out the radar of authorities makes the plague more evasive to understand and difficult to fight. So far, no European government has conducted a scientific investigation on the scope of sexual abuse as the basic tool to tackle the issue and its most frequent causes. The only institutions that have commissioned such reports are three Catholic episcopal conferences on the continent. Its findings are summarised in this article, to infer takeaways useful for state authorities to confront and defeat the mentioned problem.

Keywords:

child sexual abuse,crisis,European Union,Catholic Church,protection of minors

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