Archdiocese of Kansas City responds to news of 400+ child sexual abuse victims in Kansas

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Archdiocese of Kansas Metropolis in Kansas spoke out Saturday after the Kansas Bureau of Investigation launched a report that discovered over 400 victims of kid sexual abuse from the Kansas clergy over the course of fifty years.

The investigation, which was launched in 2019, recognized 188 members of the Kansas clergy who’re suspected of committing aggravated prison sodomy, rape, aggravated indecent liberties with a baby and aggravated sexual battery crimes.

“You can not learn this report with out your coronary heart breaking,” stated Archbishop Joseph Naumann, chief of the Archdiocese of Kansas Metropolis in Kansas.

The assertion says that Naumann initially requested an investigation “of archdiocesan information by the legal professional normal in 2018.”

“The Archdiocese has overtly collaborated with the KBI from the second we initiated an intensive and thorough evaluate of our inner information by an impartial, exterior regulation agency,” Vicar Common Father John Riley stated in a written assertion. “We shared the total outcomes of our impartial evaluate with the KBI and have continued to supply further data all through the investigation.”

The response says that in recent times, the diocese of Kansas have created packages to “shield kids and weak adults in its parishes and faculties” and that there was a decline in allegations in recent times.

Allegations peaked at 1,367 reviews from 1970-74. Allegations dropped to 518 reported cases from 1985-1989 and 101 from 2010 to 2014, in response to the KBI’s findings.

Anybody who suspects abuse or neglect from the Kansas clergy can report it to the Kansas Safety Report Middle at 800-922-5330, and anybody who has been or is aware of somebody abused by a member of the archdiocese ought to name native regulation enforcement and the archdiocesan confidential report line at 913-647-305. Abuse can be reported to the Archdiocese of Kansas Metropolis in Kansas on-line.