The nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting reported earlier this week that at least 20 Jesuits who had been credibly accused of abuse against minors were housed at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., until 2016.

The terms used to describe and classify alleged sexual abuse are not standardized across dioceses and religious orders. Should they be?

While church officials have publicly identified 185 clergy members in Illinois as having been “credibly” accused of child sexual abuse, the Illinois attorney general's office states that it found allegations of abuse by at least 500 more.

From the Center for Investigative Reporting: For more than three decades, Cardinal Bea House on Gonzaga's campus served as a retirement repository for at least 20 Jesuit priests accused of sexual misconduct that predominantly took place in small, isolated Alaska Native villages and on Indian reservations across the Northwest.

The revelations are seen as an important step by the Society of Jesus.

After an allegation of his misconduct with a minor in the 1990s was deemed credible, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of the Auxiliary Bishop Alexander Salazar.