On the website BishopAccountability.org, listed in alphabetical order, are the names of priests in the United States who are known to be sexual predators. They are accused by adults whose lives were shattered.

Chills run through my body and tears well up in my eyes as I count the number of victims for the letter “F”: 201. That’s just the letter “F.”

You’d think that all of the abusers would incarcerated, yet many of them have been released after serving short sentences, while others, though accused, were initially let go and soon reinstated for lack of proof.

Pick a year — any year — and you will find at least one priest who performed malicious and sadistic sexual acts on a child.

A secret society hides behind the cloth — a haven for predators, where men use faith in God to empower them to seduce and sodomize the innocent.

According to the Center of Applied Research of the Apostle (CARA), there are 414,313 priests, and 5,100 bishops worldwide. The percentage of priests and bishops who have directly abused boys or girls or both is higher than we can imagine. In the latest report, at least 300 men were named in the Pennsylvania grand jury report as having abused their power as servants to the Lord.

But it’s not just the priests themselves who are to blame. The bishops, who enabled the behavior with massive cover-ups, must also be held accountable. 

When silence is broken, truths are told. There is no denying the devastation of the souls whose spirits were changed forever, or the grief and trauma that marks them for life.

Their innocence ruined, survivors become rebels as they fight a sense of feeling dirty. These feelings are often met with an inability to form close or intimate relationships, and a need to quiet their emotional demons, which can lead to alcohol or drug abuse.

Worse yet, the abused might become abusers themselves. And suicide risk is high for survivors of this abuse; a successful suicide is for many the only way to find peace.

How many lives must be lost to these abuses for it to stop? When will the cover-up stop? When do the arrests begin? They didn’t happen in 1957, or 1980, or even in 2018. There seems to be a lack of fear and a sense of narcissism that allows these predators to get away with their abuse — along with denial that is evergreen.

Though 300 priests have been named, the question must be asked, “Whose name isn’t on the list?” More than a 1,000 have spoken out about the abuse. Their grief and trauma are embedded in their souls, yet silence is historically a means of coping with the shame and helplessness felt by such victims.

Help them. Stop creating a hiding place in the name of the Church. Stop the silence. Stop the blindness. It’s time. 

Justice will not come simply by imprisoning the abusers. That’s just a beginning. Now it is time for action to be taken by the Vatican.

Edy Nathan’s new book is called It’s Grief: The Dance of Self-Discovery Through Trauma and Loss.