How the story of abuse in Catholic Church institutions emerged around the world:
1984
The first case of clerical child sex abuse to go public: Fr Gilbert Gauthé in Louisiana, in the United States, is revealed as a serial paedophile.
1985
Fr Tom Doyle, a US canon law expert, warns of dire consequences if scandal is not dealt with openly and effectively. He is ignored and removed from his position in the Vatican embassy in Washington.
1993
Pope John Paul II writes to US bishops: "I share your sadness and disappointment." But he says the child sex abuse problem concerns only a small group of priests.
His spokesman, Joaquín Navarro-Valls, sums up the Vatican attitude: "One would have to ask if the real culprit is not a society that is irresponsibly permissive, hyperinflated with sexuality and capable of creating circumstances that induce even people who have received a sound moral formation to commit grave immoral acts." Canadian bishop Hubert O'Connor resigns after being convicted of molesting teenagers at a boarding school.
1995
Austrian cardinal Hans Herman Groer resigns as head of the Austrian Catholic Church amidst allegations he sexually abused boys. He remains archbishop of Vienna.
Two German Catholic bishops investigated for covering up clerical child abuse.
1997
Australian bishop Ronald Mulkearns resigns after failing to act against a priest later convicted of child abuse.
Catholic diocese of Dallas, Texas, ordered to pay $118 million to victims of Fr Rudy Kos. It is the largest ever child sex abuse settlement. The diocese was held to have covered up Kos's abuse.
2000
UK cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor rejects calls for his resignation over his handling of Fr Michael Hill, who received a five-year jail sentence for child sex abuse.
2001
French bishop Pierre Pican on trial for failure to report his knowledge of sex abuse crimes by a priest against children.
He receives a three-month suspended sentence. Reports to the Vatican of widespread sexual abuse of nuns by priests throughout Africa.
No response from the Vatican.
Archbishop of Cardiff Dr John Aloysius Ward resigns in the midst of controversy over his handling of paedophile priests.
2002
JAN/FEB - Clerical child sex abuse scandal explodes in US with release of thousands of documents implicating Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston in a major cover-up.
MARCH - Archbishop Juliusz Paetz resigns over allegations of improper behaviour with trainee priests.
APRIL - US cardinals summoned to Rome by pope as their child sex abuse crisis spreads nationwide.
JUNE - Third US bishop resigns over abuse allegations. Bishop of Lexington Kentucky Kendrick Williams joins bishops Anthony O'Connell (an Irishman) and Rembert Weakland, both forced to resign earlier in 2002.
OCTOBER - Archbishop Edgardo Storni of Argentina resigns amid allegations he sexually abused seminarians.
DECEMBER - Boston cardinal Bernard Law resigns over evidence of cover-up.
2003
JUNE - Ex-Governor of Oklahoma Frank Keating resigns as head of US Catholic Church sex abuse oversight panel after comparing some bishops to the Mafia.
2004
FEBRUARY - Report finds 10,600 children abused by US priests since 1950.
JULY - Diocese of Portland is first in world to file for bankruptcy in the face of compensation claims from clerical child abuse victims.
2005
APRIL - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger becomes Pope Benedict XVI, following death of John Paul II
2008
JULY - Pope apologises for clerical abuse scandal in Australia.
2009
SEPTEMBER - Canadian bishop Raymond Lahey resigns after his arrest for distributing and selling child pornography.
2010
FEBRUARY - Some 120 former students of Jesuit schools in the 1970s and 1980s in Berlin, Hamburg and the Black Forest come forward with tales of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of Jesuits.
MARCH - The Catholic Church in The Netherlands asks an independent commission to look into reports of alleged sexual abuses by priests.
APRIL - Three Roman Catholic priests in northeastern Brazil are suspected of sexually abusing children in a scandal that arose after a video showed one of the priests in a sex act with a young man.
AUGUST - Dublin's archdiocese confirms offers of resignation by auxiliary bishops Eamonn Walsh and Ray Field had not been accepted by the Pope. Both men served as bishops during the period investigated by the Murphy Commission into clerical child sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Dublin
SEPTEMBER - During his visit to the United Kingdom, Pope Benedict concedes the church mishandled the issue of clerical child sex abuse.
2011
MAY - Belgium's Catholic bishops agree to compensate victims of sexual abuse by priests in cases where the country's statute of limitations denies them the right to seek redress in court.
MAY - The Vatican asks all Catholic bishops to draw up child protection guidelines within the next year on how to deal with allegations of sexual abuse against priests.
MAY - Amnesty names the Vatican in a report on human rights abuses for the first time.
JUNE - Belgians molested by priests go ahead with legal proceedings against the Vatican for damages despite an offer by local bishops to compensate them.