HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A priest raped a 7-year-old girl while visiting her in the hospital after she had her tonsils removed. Another priest forced a 9-year-old boy into having oral sex, then rinsed out the youngster’s mouth with holy water. One boy was forced to say confession to the priest who sexually abused him.
An estimated 300 Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania molested more than 1,000 children — and possibly many more — since the 1940s, according to a scathing Pennsylvania grand jury report released Tuesday that accused senior church officials, including the man who is now archbishop of Washington, D.C., of systematically covering up complaints.
The “real number” of victimized children and abusive priests might be higher since some secret church records were lost and some victims never came forward, the grand jury said in the report that is the largest of its kind in the United States.
U.S. bishops adopted widespread reforms in 2002 when clergy abuse became a national crisis for the church, including stricter requirements for reporting accusations to law enforcement and a streamlined process for removing clerics.
But the grand jury said more changes are needed.
“Despite some institutional reform, individual leaders of the church have largely escaped public accountability,” the grand jury wrote in the roughly 900-page report. “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all.“
Top church officials have mostly been protected, and many, including some named in the report, have been promoted, the grand jury said, concluding that “it is too early to close the book on the Catholic Church sex scandal.“
Cardinal Donald Wuerl, leader of the Washington Archdiocese, was accused in the report of helping to protect abusive priests when he was Pittsburgh’s bishop from 1988 to 2006.
Wuerl has disputed the allegations.
At a Mass held Wednesday in Washington on the feast of the Assumption of Mary, Wuerl did not address the accusations against himself, but urged parishioners not to lose confidence in the church over the “terrible plague” of abuse.
In nearly every case, the Pennsylvania grand jury said, prosecutors found that the statute of limitations has run out, meaning criminal charges cannot be filed.
More than 100 of the priests are dead. Many others are retired or have been dismissed from the priesthood or put on leave.
Authorities charged just two as a result of the grand jury investigation, including a priest who has since pleaded guilty, though some of those named were prosecuted years ago.
The investigation of six of Pennsylvania’s eight dioceses— Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton — is the most extensive investigation of Catholic clergy abuse by any state, according to victims’ advocates. The dioceses represent about 1.7 million Catholics.
Until now, there have been nine investigations by a prosecutor or grand jury of a Catholic diocese or archdiocese in the U.S., according to the Massachusetts-based research and advocacy organization BishopAccountability.org.
“One thing this is going to do is put pressure on prosecutors elsewhere to take a look at what’s going on in their neck of the woods,” Terry McKiernan of BishopAccountability.org said.
The Philadelphia Archdiocese and the Johnstown-Altoona Diocese were not included in the probe because they have been the subject of three previous scathing grand jury investigations.
As church officials scrambled to defend themselves, the state attorney general’s office said its hotline for victims had lit up, fielding more than 150 calls within 24 hours of the report becoming public.
Calls to the hotline in 2016 spurred the grand jury investigation, and Attorney General Josh Shapiro said the investigation is still going on.
The grand jury heard from dozens of witnesses and reviewed more than a half-million pages of internal diocesan documents, including reports by bishops to Vatican officials about the allegations against priests.
The panel concluded that a succession of bishops and other diocesan leaders tried to shield the church from bad publicity and financial liability. They failed to report accused clergy to police, used confidentiality agreements to silence victims and sent priests to “treatment facilities,” which “laundered” the clergymen and “permitted hundreds of known offenders to return to ministry,” the report said.
The conspiracy of silence extended beyond church grounds: Police or prosecutors sometimes did not investigate allegations out of deference to church officials or brushed off complaints as outside the statute of limitations, the grand jury said.
A former Pennsylvania county prosecutor was fired Wednesday from his job as an attorney for a county youth services office after the report showed that, as Beaver County’s elected district attorney in the 1960s, he stopped an investigation into alleged child abuse by a priest to gain political favor from the Pittsburgh Diocese.
Diocese leaders responded Tuesday by expressing sorrow for the victims, stressing how they’ve changed and unveiling, for the first time, a list of priests accused of sexual misconduct.
James VanSickle of Pittsburgh, who testified he was sexually attacked in 1981 by a priest in the Erie Diocese, called the report’s release “a major victory to get our voice out there, to get our stories told.“
The report is still the subject of a legal battle, with the identities of some current and former clergy blacked out while the state Supreme Court weighs their requests to remain anonymous.
The report comes at a time of fresh scandal at the highest levels of the U.S. Catholic Church. Pope Francis last month stripped 88-year-old Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of his title amid allegations that McCarrick had for years sexually abused boys and committed sexual misconduct with adult seminarians.
The findings echoed many earlier church investigations around the country that found widespread sexual abuse and attempts to conceal it. U.S. bishops have acknowledged that more than 17,000 people nationwide have reported being molested by priests and others in the church going back to 1950.
Below, a look at accusations against four of the more recent bishops cited in the report:
BISHOP DAVID ZUBIK
Pittsburgh, 2007 to present
The report lists several instances in which Zubik, both before and after becoming bishop, failed to notify law enforcement of credible abuse claims.
In one example, a 1994 complaint against a priest was deemed credible in part because the victim had “detailed knowledge” of the priest’s anatomy. The victim met with Zubik when Zubik was still a priest and a handful of others to discuss the allegations, the report said.
Zubik and the others also appeared to have talked to then-Bishop Donald Wuerl, now a cardinal and archbishop of Washington, but they did not report the allegations to police.
RESPONSE:
Beginning in 2002, Zubik said, all credible allegations were reported to law enforcement. Starting in 2007, he said, all allegations regardless of credibility were reported. The diocese said the grand jury inaccurately attributed statements and drew other conclusions without proof.
BISHOP EMERITUS DONALD W. TRAUTMAN
Erie, 1990-2012
Trautman, according to the report, allowed priests to continue regular or restricted duties despite credible allegations of abuse. The report also accused him of being dishonest about the diocese’s knowledge of abuse of victims and reassigning accused priests to keep them in the ministry.
He reassigned one priest several times despite abuse accusations, said the report, which also quoted several instances in which Trautman told reporters and the public that he knew of no priest with a pedophile background in any form of ministry and he would not have transferred a known abuser to another parish.
The report cited a news release from the diocese claiming it had no knowledge of additional victims of another priest. The release “was false and misleading. Trautman had personal knowledge of at least three victims, one as young as 13, who reported their abuse to him in 2002,” the report said.
RESPONSE:
Trautman and his lawyer denied the bishop ever covered up sexual abuse. He acted swiftly to confront priests when he received allegations and to remove priests from ministry, he and his lawyer said.
BISHOP EMERITUS EDWARD PETER CULLEN
Allentown, 1997-2009
Internal documents cited by the grand jury showed Cullen did not take action against a priest who transferred to a different diocese in Texas after abuse allegations surfaced. Following the priest’s arrest in Texas, the diocese issued a statement saying it was surprised and had communicated rumors of abuse but never had contact with victims.
The grand jury said several victims contacted the diocese directly.
Cullen was also cited for having approved pensions or stipends and health insurance for several priests who resigned amid abuse allegations.
The report said he renewed another priest’s faculties, or ability to perform the sacraments, despite knowing of credible abuse claims. When the father of a victim became irate over a celebratory announcement about the renewal, the diocese did not address the renewal, but instead created a list of priests whose positive announcements had to be approved before they were published, the grand jury said.
RESPONSE:
A diocese spokesman said that Cullen is retired and would not be talking to reporters. He said the diocese stood by its 2002 characterization that the allegations against the priest who transferred to Texas, were surprising at the time the diocese statement was issued.
BISHOP EMERITUS JAMES TIMLIN
Scranton, 1984-2003
The report credits a glowing letter from Timlin as the reason at least one priest accused of abusing young boys was allowed to transfer into a diocese in Paraguay. That priest and the bishop he served under in Paraguay were later removed by the Vatican.
The background, according to the grand jury, is unusual. A group of young priests split from the church and formed an unauthorized religious order. When several of the priests wanted to come back to the church, Timlin allowed them into the Scranton diocese without doing background checks and gave them permission to buy property to start a college.
Allegations surfaced that the priests were sleeping in the same beds as young males at the property, and a father wrote a letter to the Vatican alleging abuse by at least three of the priests. One of the priests, after receiving treatment, petitioned to move to Paraguay and was transferred following a glowing letter from Timlin, the grand jury said. Subsequent bishops disavowed the order.
RESPONSE:
A diocese spokesman said Timlin, now 91, would not be doing interviews and pointed to information from an attorney contained in a response to the report. That response noted that Timlin instituted a uniform response policy for allegations of abuse and established an internal review board.
Associated Press writer Michael Rubinkam in Pennsylvania contributed to this report. This story has been corrected to show that Wuerl spoke at a Mass on Wednesday, not Thursday.
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