Catholic Church is trying to curb US state probe into child sexual abuse

PENNSYLVANIA Attorney General Josh Shapiro has shaken the Catholic Church to its foundation – and he is not finished yet. It has been nearly eight weeks since a Pennsylvania grand jury released a bombshell report alleging more than 300 priests across the state sexually abused children over seven decades, and the church hierarchy in six Pennsylvania dioceses was complicit in covering it up.

Since then, Shapiro has been sought out by attorneys general in more than 40 other states seeking advice on how they might conduct similar probes. A dozen have already announced they are pursuing investigations.

There may be others. In Maryland, for instance, Attorney General Brian Frosh won’t confirm or deny whether an inquiry is under way. But shortly after the Pennsylvania report, his office put this on its website: “If you were a victim of an abuser associated with a school or place of worship, or you have knowledge of such abuse, please provide the information you want to share about it in the link below.”

Shapiro says what his investigation exposed in the Church was nothing short of “a national criminal enterprise. It was not just limited to Pennsylvania.”

But few of the other attorneys general have anything close to the kind of sweeping power Pennsylvania law grants Shapiro, starting with his ability to convene a statewide investigative grand jury for this kind of undertaking. And it remains a big question whether the Church itself will cooperate or obstruct.

Bishops in most states have been expressing their willingness to assist in the investigations, but those assurances do not count for much, unless the Church opens its records to a truly independent review.

Shapiro’s own experience suggests the Church’s promises to cooperate should not be taken at face value. Last year, even as Pennsylvania bishops were making public statements supporting the inquiry, two of the six dioceses under investigation filed motions – initially kept under seal – that sought to block the statewide grand jury, claiming local law enforcement should have jurisdiction.

Supervising Judge Norman Krumenacker properly dismissed the Church’s argument, saying it ran “counter to logic and would potentially permit criminal activity to go uninvestigated and unpunished”.

The legal wrangling has continued even after the release of the grand jury report. On September 26, the state Supreme Court heard arguments over whether those whose names were redacted from the 1,400-page interim report should continue to have their identities protected. The attorney general’s office is pressing to publicly name them in the final version of the report; the petitioners’ lawyers – who will not confirm the obvious, which is that their clients are clergy, or even how many of them there are – say the accused were not afforded due process.

If the Church and its allies succeed, it could be a first step towards curbing the attorney general’s powers under the state’s muscular grand jury law.

“What is really at stake here is less about the identity of these petitioners and more about curtailing the grand jury act and protecting powerful institutions like the Catholic Church,” the attorney general added. (© Washington Post)