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Slideshow

New Map Ilustrates Catholic Sexual Abuse in Indian Country

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CASES

Nearly half of all Jesuit priests and brothers credibly accused of sexual abuse against children or vulnerable adults in a ten-state region in the western United States over the past 70 years worked in Indian Country.

That’s what’s depicted by Desolate Country: Mapping Catholic Sex abuse in Native America, an interactive map that plots the years and locations of 99 priests and 13 brothers of the Jesuits West Province. Of them, 47 of the men with credible allegations of abuse against them spent time working at Native missions.

The Jesuits West Province—which includes Arizona, Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington—formed in July 2017 as a merger between the former California and Oregon Provinces after the Oregon Province paid close to $200 million in settlement claims to Indigenous survivors of sexual abuse, leading to bankruptcy. 

The map’s creators— religious studies scholars Katie Holscher and Jack Downey—used the information published by the Jesuits West Province as a requirement of the bankruptcy settlement.

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