By now, we know a lot about the priest abuse scandal that swept across the country. There are already countless news stories, big-budget motion pictures and thousands of legal settlements. So the question is, why keep fighting the Catholic Church for more information? Why does it still matter today?
In a three-part series we are calling Shattered Faith, we lay out why all this still matters. There are former priests walking the streets of New Mexico today who are responsible for victimizing dozens upon dozens of children. They have never been criminally charged and they have never faced prison time. In the time span of a few decades, clergymen preyed on more than a hundred children. Now as adults, their mental health has suffered. In fact, many mental health professionals believe the sheer number of adults dealing with childhood sexual trauma has put New Mexico into a mental health crisis.