Report on clergy abuse spurs wave of probes
The explosive report about sexual abuse by Catholic priests unveiled by a Pennsylvania grand jury in August has set off an unprecedented wave of investigations over the past several months, with attorneys general in 14 states and the District of Columbia announcing probes and demanding documents from Catholic officials. Those efforts have been joined by a federal investigation out of Philadelphia that may become national in scope.
The swift and sweeping response by civil authorities contrasts sharply with the Vatican’s comparatively glacial pace. While some U.S. dioceses have published lists of priests they say have been credibly accused of sexual abuse and two cardinals have been ousted, the Vatican this month put on hold a vote by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on measures to hold bishops more accountable until after a global synod in early 2019. In the meantime, Rome has done little to address the crisis.
“The Catholic Church has proven that it cannot police itself,” said Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, whose state is among those investigating. “And civil authorities can’t let the church hide child sexual abuse allegations as personnel matters. They’re crimes. We need a full accounting of the church.”
The new investigations are taking place in a very different climate than existed in 2002, when the Boston Globe exposed decades of abuse and coverups in that city. Many lay Catholics have lost faith in the church’s ability to right itself and are pushing for civil authorities to hold highranking church officials accountable. There’s also a greater willingness by law enforcement to do battle with a church that has become a far less formidable local presence.
However, hope for action won’t be satisfied quickly. Following an initial flurry of news conferences and calls to hotlines set up for the public to report abuse, there is likely to be an extended period of silence while prosecutors gather evidence.
State and federal prosecutors have three tools at their disposal: criminal charges against allegedly guilty priests or even the bishops believed to have abetted their abuse; civil suits against individuals or larger church entities; and public reports that expose the names and deeds of accused abusers without formal action.
As authorities launch their investigations, often involving episodes that are decades old, they make no promises about where their probes will ultimately lead.
“Will they get many prosecutions out of it? Probably not,” said Marci Hamilton, executive director of Child USA, a think tank dedicated to stopping child abuse. “In most circumstances, the statute of limitations has expired, or the evidence is circumstantial.”
She noted, however, that the attorneys general are likely to extract plenty of new information in their states and that the reports they generate, much like Pennsylvania’s, “will be good for painting a picture for the public to understand that this is a systemic problem. It’s a real positive step in the right direction.”
Despite obstacles, many attorneys general are seeking to bring criminal cases, both to punish offenders and draw public attention to sexual abuse by clergy members.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who oversaw the grand jury that issued the bombshell report, said he has since spoken with 40 of his colleagues around the country and urged them to be aggressive in mining the church’s archives and filing charges. After the 2002 crisis, many states expanded their criminal statutes, and 41 states, the District of Columbia and the federal government now have no time limits for at least some child sexual abuse charges, according to Child USA.
“The church shouldn’t get to play by different rules,” Shapiro told the Washington Post editorial board, “and for too long, they’ve been allowed to play by different rules.”
The church’s response to the civil actions has been mixed. Some Catholic officials complain that the church has been unfairly targeted. Diocesan lawyers are pushing back behind the scenes, for example resisting changes to state statutes of limitations. At the same time, most bishops have publicly voiced support for the probes.
“If they say we need to do something different, we will,” said Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, of Chicago. “We shouldn’t be afraid of admitting mistakes and fixing things.”
The result of a two-year investigation, the 800page Pennsylvania grandjury report was graphic in detailing repeated incidents of sexual molestation by more than 1,000 priests in six dioceses. In strong language, it openly condemned the church’s role in covering up the abuse. Archbishop Donald Wuerl of the Archdiocese of Washington was forced to retire after allegations that he covered up clergy sex abuse in Pittsburgh when he was bishop there.
“Priests were raping little boys and girls,” the grand jury wrote, “and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing, they hid it all. For decades.”
It didn’t take long for many of the country’s top law enforcement officials to capitalize on the outrage the report sparked.
Since the report’s release Aug. 14, attorneys general in Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Vermont, Virginia and Washington, D.C., have launched criminal investigations into the church.
In Illinois, Madigan said that her staff has received hundreds of emails and calls to its reporting hotline for victims since August, and that she has reviewed about half of them.
“They are sad, profound, horrible stories,” she told the Washington Post. “Some are people who were victimized years ago and never said anything.”
The ability of the attorneys general to investigate and act on reports of abuse is limited by jurisdiction and statutes of limitations that apply to criminal and civil cases.
Even in the majority of states where criminal statutes for child abuse crimes are not a significant barrier, not all attorneys general have the power to prosecute the cases.
In Nebraska, for example, the attorney general “has a long history of investigating and prosecuting child abuse and child sexual assault cases throughout the state,” spokeswoman Suzanne Gage said.
By contrast, in Missouri, criminal jurisdiction lies with local prosecutors, so Attorney General Josh Hawley, who was elected this month to the U.S. Senate, requested Catholic dioceses voluntarily turn over “all evidence that would be gained with subpoena power,” spokeswoman Mary Compton said.
That’s a less-than-ideal approach because it allows church officials to withhold documents if they are inclined, said Shapiro, the Pennsylvania attorney general.
Shapiro was able to use an authority few attorneys general have — the ability to impanel a statewide grand jury — to subpoena documents from churches across Pennsylvania.
But some diocesan lawyers have warned that grand-jury reports are dangerous because they imply guilt when none has been proved in court.
Kim Viti Fiorentino, the Washington archdiocese’s lawyer, said the “flawed process” of such a report, without due process, “fails the survivors,” and thus the whole document should be questioned.
Civil lawsuits are another hammer prosecutors can use, and the level of proof is lower: A preponderance of the evidence, or just more than half of the proof, is accepted, rather than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard in criminal cases.
The statutes of limitations on civil actions are much narrower. In most states, there’s a limit of no more than five years from the time of the alleged acts, and some states have limits as short as two years. Advocates are calling for states to expand time limits or create new windows of availability for victims of sexual abuse, but so far, even in Pennsylvania, that movement has not made much progress. Of 15 states considering such changes this year, only two legislatures extended the civil statute of limitations, although Child USA’s Hamilton says New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania are likely to next year.
While some dioceses have begun publishing lists on their own, many Catholics and victim advocates are skeptical about how far the church will go in excavating its past.
Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, who in the early 2000s chaired the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People created by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the lay board recommended in 2004 that the church post the names of abusers and that it include adults as victims. While some have done so over the years, most never did.
“People are still wondering: Who are the abusers?” Burke said. “Are they still in ministry? … Civil authorities are the only vehicle so we can know for sure.”