The diocese is also one of the largest in the nation, its domain encompassing Brooklyn and Queens in New York City, an area with 1.5 million people who the church says identify as Catholic.
The disclosure covers decades of allegations involving priests who had served in the diocese’s many neighborhood parishes, as well as its schools, including Cathedral Preparatory, Christ the King, St. Francis Preparatory and Archbishop Molloy high schools. Advocates who track abuse cases said it also roughly doubled the number of suspected abusers they had been aware of in the diocese.
The list contributes to a growing sense of the vastness of a sex abuse epidemic that has plunged the Catholic Church into scandal and inflamed a crisis in confidence among its followers. Church officials have employed the disclosures as a way to acknowledge failures and mend ties with Catholics whose relationship with the church has been tested over its handling of sex abuse.
“We know this list will generate many emotions for victims who have suffered terribly,” the Most Rev. Nicholas DiMarzio, the bishop of Brooklyn, said in a statement accompanying the disclosure. “For their suffering, I am truly sorry. I have met with many victims who have told me that more than anything, they want an acknowledgment of what was done to them. This list gives that recognition and I hope it will add another layer of healing for them on their journey toward wholeness.”
DiMarzio followed dozens of other bishops in the United States in publishing the names of suspected abusers after an explosive grand jury report in Pennsylvania last summer that worsened tensions in the church by documenting seven decades of accusations.
On Wednesday, the bishops of the five Catholic dioceses in New Jersey released the names of nearly 200 priests who had been credibly accused.
And last month, the Jesuit province covering the northeastern United States identified 50 accused priests, including many who had served in the order’s schools in New York City.
The bishops in Hartford, Connecticut; Kansas City, Missouri; and most of the 15 dioceses in Texas were among the others who named accused priests in the past month.
But the Brooklyn diocese’s disclosure has surprised advocates by the sheer number included, as it stands as one of the largest yet from an individual diocese. The archdioceses in Los Angeles and Boston are among the few others that have identified more accused priests.
More than anything, church officials in Brooklyn said the disclosure reflected the expanse of the diocese, both in demographic size and in history. The diocese said the list covers its 166-year existence, and that the suspected priests made up not even 5 percent of the clergy who served during that time.
“It is probably not everyone, I hate to say it, but it sounds like a robust list compared to some others,” said Terry McKiernan, the president of BishopAccountability.org, which tracks cases of alleged clerical abuse. “Brooklyn is a really large diocese. It’s larger than some archdioceses.”
Catholic officials have portrayed the disclosures as a move toward accountability, as the church expresses contrition over its shortcomings and shines a light on cases that had long been shrouded in darkness.
Many victims have welcomed the lists, accepting them as long-awaited affirmation. But advocates have also raised concerns about the limitations of the church’s willingness to be transparent.
“Seeing that they are not alone helps victims heal and could also compel others who were abused — whether by the same person or in the same place — to come forward,” said Zach Hiner, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP. “What is not helpful, though, is the careful curation of these lists.”
Forty-one of the named clergy members died or resigned before the accusations were found credible, the diocese said, and nearly two-thirds of the priests named have died. Two of the 108 clergy members named were deacons. (The earliest clergy member included on the list was Monsignor John Cross, who was ordained in 1916.)
With the disclosure, the diocese included a graph showing that cases of suspected abuse peaked in the 1960s and 1970s; many of the allegations were reported after 2002. Since then, when the diocese instituted what it described as a zero-tolerance policy permanently removing credibly accused priests from ministry, it found two credible cases.
In 2017, the Diocese of Brooklyn named eight former priests who were defrocked for child sexual abuse offenses. Those priests were also included in the most recent disclosure.
Beyond those priests, advocates said that they had been aware of dozens of others who were believed to be abusers.
Advocates said the Brooklyn list was an important development in illustrating the extent of the abuse in the diocese. But they also noted that the diocese, like the others, operated at its own discretion in choosing which names and what information to include. “It is good that Brooklyn included previously unknown abusers by putting them on this list,” McKiernan said. “But it also leaves a lot to be desired.”
The list did not provide the start and end dates of a priest’s time at a parish, and it also included no information about the nature of the accusations, making it unclear if each man faced allegations from one accuser or several.
“There were some names I did not think they would ever release that they did on this list, so it is better than I expected,” said Sister Sally Butler, a Dominican nun in Brooklyn and a member of Catholic Whistleblowers, a group of current and former clergy members who are activists against clerical abuse. “There are some missing names on this list that have me wondering. I think some people are still being protected.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.