Illinois report details scale of Catholic clergy sex abuse

Hundreds of Catholic priests and church officials in the US state of Illinois have been named in a new report detailing sexual abuse by clergy.

The state's top prosecutor said 451 clergy in Illinois had sexually abused 1,997 children since 1950.

The church had acknowledged only 103 individual abusers before the start of the investigation in 2018.

Nearly every survivor interviewed struggled with mental health issues after being abused, the report said.

Several US states launched investigations into Catholic sexual abuse after a Pennsylvania grand jury report in 2018 found that 300 priests had abused more than 1,000 children over a period of 70 years.

The nearly 700-page report released by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul on Tuesday includes dozens of harrowing stories of rape and sexual abuse, and details how allegations were ignored and abusers were shifted from church to church.

The archbishop of Chicago said he had not studied the new report in detail but took issue with how the statistics were presented, saying "it isn't fair or wise to focus only on the Catholic Church."

In a statement, Cardinal Blase J Cupich apologised to the survivors and pledged that the church would root out abusers and continue to investigate allegations.