“Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 19:14 (KJV)
Preyed Upon
This archive documents sexual-abuse cases and institutional cover-ups by clergy and church-run schools — evangelical, independent Baptist, Catholic, and every other denomination — built only from court records and public sources. Its premise is simple: non-Catholic churches and Christian schools largely escape the scrutiny the Catholic Church receives. This archive applies one standard to all of them.
Every case file separates three kinds of material and never blurs them: what a court has proven, what named sources allege, and what the public record still leaves unanswered. The full rules are on the Standards page.
The verses they never quote
“But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
Matthew 18:6 (KJV)
The room where it happened, in case after case: the Book open on the desk, the children gone, and the stone the Book itself prescribes waiting by the door. Matthew 18:6
A fifth-grade teacher served 29 years at a church-run school in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Convicted at trial of sexually abusing a first-grader, he is serving 20 to 40 years and is classified a lifetime sexually violent predator. Former students allege a wider, decades-long pattern the institution never answered for. The court record, the allegations, and the unanswered questions — kept separate, as always.
Court-proventhe conviction, the sentence, the docket Attributed allegationa wider pattern, alleged by former students Open questionthe institution's answers — still outstanding
West Chester is Case No. 1 because it is documented to the docket. It is not an anomaly. Every major investigation of any Christian tradition in the United States has found the same structure: accusations in the thousands, charges in the dozens, and institutions that transferred, restored, settled quietly, or kept the list secret. The figures below are each source's own, in each source's own terms — accused, charged, and convicted are never merged.
4,392 accused · 252 convicted
Catholic priests accused in U.S. diocesan files, 1950–2002 — and how few were ever convicted (John Jay Report, 2004).
300+ priests · 2 chargeable
Pennsylvania's 2018 grand jury: more than 1,000 identified victims, and limitations law barred charges in nearly every case (PA Grand Jury, 2018).
703 names, kept secret
The Southern Baptist Executive Committee privately listed accused ministers for over a decade and acted on none of it; 9 were still in ministry (Guidepost, 2022).
220 convicted or pleaded
Of ~380 Southern Baptist leaders and volunteers who faced allegations, 1998–2018, with more than 700 victims (Houston Chronicle, "Abuse of Faith," 2019).
168 leaders · 45 kept ministering
Independent fundamental Baptist leaders accused or convicted of sex crimes against children; at least 45 continued in ministry after accusations reached authorities (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 2018).
~200 accused · 475+ allegedly abused
Assemblies of God pastors, employees and volunteers accused over ~50 years — with ~30 placed or restored into authority after accusation (NBC News, 2025).
Behind each dataset stands the same file the FBI analysts named in Pennsylvania: a seven-step playbook for concealing the truth. And behind the Jehovah's Witnesses' numbers stands a database headquarters built from reports by all 10,883 U.S. congregations in 1997 — whose contents no court has ever obtained. There is no verified national total, and this archive does not invent one.
Every documented case in one searchable index — 8283 entries in this first edition, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, each carrying the status of the record it came from and a link to that source. A listing is not a finding by this archive; statuses are never upgraded beyond their source's wording. Search by name or institution, or filter by tradition, status, and state.
Looking for who lives near you? This archive cannot tell you — most of the people in it are dead, in prison, or decades gone, and we publish no home addresses. The official sex-offender registries can: they are kept by law enforcement, under law, with current data, and most let you search by address and distance around a home or a school. Our registry hub gives you the national search and every state's official registry, verified link by link.
Facts taken from dockets, verdicts, sentences, and official releases. Each one is sourced, and the docket controls when sources disagree.
Tier 2 · Attributed allegation
Claims by named people or named publications — petitions, reviews, reporting. Always attributed, always labeled as allegations, never presented as findings.
Tier 3 · Open question
Gaps in the public record, stated as questions. When records arrive, questions move tiers — or get answered and closed, in public.
Were you there?
Survivors and witnesses can tell their story through the archive's intake form. You choose how it may be used: published with your name, published anonymously, or recorded and never published. Nothing is published outside the choice you make.
One file per case: the court record, the institution, the allegations, the open questions, and a living log of records requested and answered — or not answered.
The recurring institutional behaviors this archive tracks across denominations — transfers instead of reports, prayer instead of police, silence instead of answers.
The standard the institutions themselves profess — the millstone, the command to expose, the sword given to the magistrate — quoted exactly, chapter and verse, beside the record of what was done instead.
