There have been cases where priests, monks, nuns, or other educators of the Catholic Church have sexually abused other people. Most were children, but some were adults. Most priests, monks and nuns have given a vow of celibacy. This means that they said they would not have sex with anyone.

There have been rules of the church how to deal with cases of abuse. Despite this, many of these cases have long been ignored by the church. Since the 1990s, media attention about the subject has increased. Many victims came forward and reported cases of abuse. Some cases happened decades earlier. Most likely, many cases are not reported at all.

In the last few years, there had been scandals involving sexual abuse in Ireland, the United States, and other countries.

A study that looked at cases of sexual abuse in the church in the United States, between 1950 and the early 2000s found that 81% of the victims were male.^[3] Two years later, the same team published another report, with more detailed findings.^[4]

The abused are mostly boys but some are girls, some as young as three years old; most are 11 to 14 years old.^[5][6][7][8] The accusations of abuse and cover-ups began to receive public attention during the late 1980s.^[9] Cases have also been brought against members of the Catholic hierarchy who covered up sex abuse allegations and moved abusive priests to other parishes, where abuse continued.^[10][11]

By the 1990s, the cases began to receive a lot of media and public attention in countries such as Canada, United States, Chile, Australia and Ireland, and in much of Europe and South America.^[12][13][14] In 2002, an investigation by The Boston Globe led to widespread media coverage of the issue in the United States. Widespread abuse has been exposed in Europe, Australia, Chile, and the United States, reflecting worldwide patterns of long-term abuse as well as the Church hierarchy's pattern of regularly covering up reports of abuse.^{[note 1]}

From 2001 to 2010, the Holy See examined sex abuse cases involving about 3,000 priests, some of which dated back fifty years.^[15] Diocesan officials and academics knowledgeable about the Catholic Church say that sexual abuse by clergy is generally not discussed, and therefore difficult to measure.^[16] Members of the Church's hierarchy have argued that media coverage was excessive and disproportionate, and that such abuse also takes place in other religions and institutions. This annoyed critics who saw it as a device to avoid resolving the abuse problem within the Church.^[17]

In a 2001 apology, John Paul II called sexual abuse within the Church "a profound contradiction of the teaching and witness of Jesus Christ".^[18] Benedict XVI apologised, met with victims, and spoke of his "shame" at the evil of abuse, calling for perpetrators to be brought to justice, and denouncing mishandling by church authorities.^[19][20] In January 2018, referring to a particular case in Chile, Pope Francis accused victims of fabricating allegations;^[21] by April, he was apologizing for his "tragic error",^[22] and by August was expressing "shame and sorrow" for the tragic history.^[23] He convened a four-day summit meeting with the participation of the presidents of all the episcopal conferences of the world, which was held in Vatican City from 21 to 24 February 2019, to discuss preventing sexual abuse by Catholic Church clergy.^[24] In December 2019, Pope Francis made sweeping changes that allow for greater transparency.^[25][26] In June 2021, a team of U.N. special rapporteurs for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights criticized the Vatican, pointing to persistent allegations that the Catholic Church had obstructed and failed to cooperate with domestic judicial proceedings in order to prevent accountability for abusers and compensation for victims.^[27]

Some Christian media and institutions have criticized the reporting media for anti-Catholic bias. A report issued by Christian Ministry Resources in 2002 said that contrary to popular opinion, there are more allegations of child sexual abuse in Protestant congregations than Catholic ones, and that sexual violence is most often committed by volunteers rather than by priests themselves.^[28] The report also criticized the way the media reported sexual crimes, stating that the Australian media reported on sexual abuse allegations against Catholic clergy but ignored such allegations against Protestant churches.^[29] Stephen Joseph Rossetti, a Catholic priest, reported that the frequency of pedophilia amongst the Catholic clergy is no higher than among general population, and a Catholic priest is no more likely to be a pedophile than an average male.^[30]