The US Catholic church is facing new pedophilia charges, after a lawsuit filed against a priest by seven adults in California alleged child sexual abuse spanning three decades.
The suit filed Wednesday in Oakland, California accused Father Stephen Kiesle of acts of sexual abuse between 1972 and 2001, and alleged that Catholic Church officials knew of the crimes but did not stop them.
"The Catholic bishops in the United States of America and the Holy See have long facilitated the sexual molestation of children by engaging in the harboring and protection of known child molesting priests," read a copy of the lawsuit obtained by AFP.
"The bishops and Catholic hierarchs have done so to prevent the priests from being prosecuted and to avoid scandal," the lawsuit read.
It said church figures "have subjected Catholic families and children in these communities to known pedophiles, counting on the devotion and reverence in the communities to keep any further abuse by the priests secret."
The plaintiffs, six women and one man, said they were abused by Kiesle throughout childhood and adolescence, although one alleged victim, Teresa Rosson, 48, said she suffered abuse at the hand of the cleric until about a decade ago.
The lawsuit is the latest of several to embroil the US Roman Catholic church, which repeatedly over the years has been accused of closing its eyes to the sexual and physical abuse of children by priests and church officials.
The church paid out 436 million dollars in 2008 for sex abuse cases involving clergy members, according to an official report last year.
The bulk of that money -- more than 374 million dollars -- was paid out in settlements to victims, according to the report that tracks how well the church is implementing a charter to protect children.
The church was plunged into crisis in 2002 after the Archbishop of Boston admitted he protected a priest he knew had sexually abused young members of his church.
During a trip to the United States in 2008, Pope Benedict XVI, the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, sought pardon from victims, saying he felt deeply ashamed by the sex scandals.
Copyright 2010  AFP American Edition
