The Pennsylvania Supreme Court made public one of the broadest-ever investigations into Catholic clerical sex abuse of minors in the United States on Tuesday. The document, a 1,400-page grand jury report, is the result of an 18-month probe by Pennsylvania state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, and names at least 300 priests accused of child sex abuse by more than 1,000 victims throughout the state.
Some of the priests’ names in the report have been redacted. The report’s release was delayed after several clergy members named in the report filed legal challenges against its publication. Shapiro told reporters at a news conference that the report details “systematic coverup by senior church officials in Pennsylvania and at the Vatican.” [...]
The report, which is often graphic and disturbing, details widespread sexual abuse and rape by priests of both female and male minors, many of whom used the language and rhetoric of their office to convince their victims that their sexual abuse was “holy” or desired by God. The breadth of the accusations and the graphic specificity of the charges make the report a watershed moment in the history of abuse in the Catholic Church: one that will take the church decades to recover from. [...]
The report concluded that between 1950 and 2002, a staggering 4,392 priests had been accused of child molestation by 10,667 individuals throughout the US. Given the reluctance of victims to come forward, that figure is probably an underestimate. This represented about 4.3 percent of active American Catholic clergy during that time.
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