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1 March 2016

ELI5: Why hasn't the Catholic Church reported all of the Priests with alleged child abuse charges to their local authorities?

I'm not a priest, but I've worked in several parishes and been a religious ed instructor for years.
First, it is worth noting that the bishops in each nation effectively run day to day control, so while some nations haven't moved much, some have. So to say "the Catholic Church" you need to focus on each nation's bishops and the laws in their respective nations.
Second, at least within the U.S. there's a distinction between 1950-(approx) 2002 and (approx) 2002-forward and the release of the the "John Jay" study here that tried for the first time to document what happened from 1950- (approx) 2002 in a systematic way.

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48ai9a/eli5_why_hasnt_the_catholic_church_reported_all/