The crisis over child sex abuse in the Roman
Catholic Church has cost the organisation both in terms of levels of
public trust and compensation payouts.
When American bishops decided in 2002 to conduct an audit of the scale
of the problem, their initiative was given a cautious welcome by
survivors of sexual abuse. But one part of the church was not part of the audit. Nuns, officially known as "women religious", do not always fall under the authority of their local bishop.
