ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — It’s not just the Catholic Church.
An extensive investigation is uncovering a sex abuse scandal with hundreds of victims spanning two decades in the Southern Baptist Church.
Of the hundreds of church leaders and workers accused of sexual misconduct, many have been convicted and remain in prison, while dozens returned to church duties, according to a joint investigation by the San Antonio Express-News and Houston Chronicle.
RELATED: Hundreds of Southern Baptist leaders were convicted of sex crimes, and several are from Florida
In all, more than 700 victims—some who were as young as 3 years old—were abused, the newspapers reported.
It’s an alarming revelation, but one that a survivor of abuse in the church says is a necessary step in the right direction to hold abusers accountable.
“There’s a move nationwide, the public is demanding accountability and transparency,” said Pinellas Park attorney Joe Saunders.
These latest revelations coming from outside of the Catholic church, unfortunately, come as no surprise to Saunders, who has represented more than 340 people who have claimed abuse as children in the church.
“In any circumstance where there is a blind allegiance, that creates an opportunity for child predators to operate under a cloak of protection,” he said.
The database compiled by the Chronicle and Express-News shows 19 Southern Baptist leaders were convicted of crimes in Florida, including nine in the Tampa Bay area.
Several past presidents and prominent Southern Baptist Convention leaders have been accused by victims of concealing or mishandling abuse complaints within their churches or seminaries, the newspapers reported.
For Mark Cattell, it’s a situation that’s all too familiar, given his pending lawsuit against the Diocese of St. Petersburg.
Cattell claims the former Bishop of St. Petersburg, William Larkin, ignored warnings raised by another alleged victim, which allowed his abuse to happen when he was just 9 years old.
Cattell says he was sexually abused on several occasions in 1981 by Father Robert D. Huneke, who had been reassigned to St. Petersburg after being transferred from the Diocese of Rockville Centre in New York where a 13-year-old claimed he’d been molested by Hunke.
“It is a terrible sense of betrayal to know that something could’ve been done quite easily to have prevented the abuse that I suffered from happening,” Cattell said.
Though Hunke died in 2002, Cattell said he still felt it was important to come forward and speak publicly.
“There’s nothing to hide here,” he said. “I’m the survivor and there’s nothing for me to be ashamed about.”
Cattell acknowledges recent moves made by the diocese to improve accountability, like creating a website addressing the crisis and cooperating with the Attorney General's office as it conducts a statewide criminal investigation into abusive priests.
He and Saunders agree the more it’s discussed openly, the better it is for everyone.
“When we were little we were taught about ‘stranger danger’ – some guy in a car offering you candy,” Saunders said. “We weren’t told that it could be your scoutmaster, it could be the YMCA, or it could be the priest at your church sent by God who gives you confession.
“The discussion … moves the needle to help protect children in the future.”
This could be just the beginning for the Southern Baptist Church. When a grand jury implicated 300 Catholic clergy in Pennsylvania last year, it set off a domino effect of more victims stepping forward.
CBS News contributed to this report.
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