United States | Lexington

Sex scandal and Southern Baptists

White evangelicals look even less able to self-correct than the Catholic church

In 1985 gilbert gauthe, a cowboy-boot-wearing showboat of a priest in southern Louisiana, was convicted of abusing dozens of altar boys. It was one of the first of the sexual-abuse scandals that for three decades have rippled through the Catholic church, devastating the institution. Millions of Americans and Europeans have left it. After a fresh round of scandals in 2018, concerning abuse of children in Pennsylvania, 37% of the remaining American Catholics said they were considering doing so.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Sex scandal and Southern Baptists”

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