In an investigation spanning 21 countries across six continents, The Associated Press found 30 cases of Roman Catholic priests accused of abuse who were transferred or moved abroad.

Here are snapshots of the cases:

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REV. DENIS VADEBONCOEUR

Vadeboncoeur, a 69-year-old priest, served a 20-month sentence in Quebec in the 1980s after pleading guilty to sexual abuse and sodomy of four teenage boys.

Afterward, he moved to a small parish in Normandy, France — and was convicted in 2005 of raping an adolescent boy. He was sentenced to 12 years in a French prison, where he is now.

The bishop at the time, Jacques Gaillot, said he tried to give the priest a second chance.

“That was my first mistake,” Gaillot told The Associated Press. “Retrospectively I realized that I was wrong to take him in, and I was wrong not to say anything.”

A 1987 letter to Gaillot from Vadeboncoeur’s Canadian superior, Pierre Levesque, clearly spelled out Vadeboncoeur’s sex crimes and concerns that he would abuse again. But Levesque also supported Vadeboncoeur’s move to France and said “the hard lesson Vadeboncoeur endured had beneficial effects on him.”

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100415/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_predator_priests_capsules_4