Concept
There have been many cases of sexual abuse of children by priests, nuns, and other members of religious life in the Catholic Church. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the cases have involved many allegations, investigations, trials, convictions, acknowledgement and apologies by Church authorities, and revelations about decades of instances of abuse and attempts by Church officials to cover them up. The abused include mostly boys but also girls, some as young as three years old, with the majority between the ages of 11 and 14. Criminal cases for the most part do not cover sexual harassment of adults. The accusations of abuse and cover-ups began to receive public attention during the late 1980s. Many of these cases allege decades of abuse, frequently made by adults or older youths years after the abuse occurred. 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. By the 1990s, the cases began to receive significant media and public attention in several countries, including in Canada, United States, Chile, Australia and Ireland, and much of Europe and South America. Pope John Paul II was criticised by representatives of the victims of clergy sexual abuse for failing to respond quickly enough to the Catholic sex abuse crisis. After decades of inaction, the scandal came to a head when Sinéad O'Connor infamously tore up a photo of John Paul II on a 3 October 1992 episode of Saturday Night Live while performing an a capella rendition of Bob Marley's "War". The protest drew praise from critics of the church but also the ire of many Catholics, which greatly damaged her career and had a strong possibility of putting her life in danger. Her brave protest would be increasingly vindicated over time as the true scale of the church's corruption and suppression of these abuses was made known through the media and elsewhere, perhaps most prominently in the 2015 Oscar-winning movie Spotlight, which won Best Picture and Best Screenplay at the 88th Academy Awards.
