THE Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), which is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, suppressed complaints of sexual abuse against priests and church staff for years, found an independent investigation commissioned by the Church.

For almost two decades, advocates and survivors who sounded the alarm over sexual misconduct faced “resistance, stonewalling and even outright hostility” from members of the Church’s executive committee (EC), said the 288-page report published by investigative firm Guidepost Solutions on Sunday.

The SBC was rocked by a sex abuse scandal in 2019, after a bombshell investigation by two Texas newspapers revealed hundreds of predators and more than 700 victims within the Church since 1998.

The media report found 380 church leaders and volunteers faced public accusations of abuse, mostly of children as young as 3 years old.

The recent report found that some leaders had no interest in seeing the cases investigated or made public.

Several senior leaders “closely guarded information about abuse allegations and lawsuits, which were not shared with EC Trustees, and were singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC to the exclusion of other considerations”, said the report.

Victims were ignored, discredited and told that no action will be taken because it will violate the autonomy of individual churches, “even if it means that convicted molesters will continue in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation”.

The report recommended “a sincere apology” to those affected by the Church’s actions and comprehensive overhaul of its policies of sexual misconduct.

The SBC has thousands of churches and 15 million members, mostly in the southern United States. – AFP, May 24, 2022.