Without oversight, scores of accused priests commit crimes

(Ben Kirkby | Arizona Daily Star | AP) In this Jan. 27, 2001, photo, Father Steven Gerard Stencil poses for a portrait at his church, St. Mark the Evangelist, in Oro Valley, Ariz. Stencil was suspended from ministry in 2001 after a trip to Mexico that violated a diocese policy forbidding clerics from being with minors overnight. In a 2019 Facebook post, the former priest said that he was working as a driver for a private Phoenix bus company that specializes in educational tours for school groups and scout troops. Nearly 1,700 priests and other clergy members that the Roman Catholic Church considers credibly accused of child sexual abuse are living under the radar with little to no oversight from religious authorities or law enforcement, decades after the first wave of the church abuse scandal roiled U.S. dioceses, an Associated Press investigation has found.

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