Church abuse report, 2 years in works, could be released soon
HARRISBURG, Pa. — A damning report into allegations of decades of child sexual abuse at the hands of clergy members and efforts to cover it up in six of Pennsylvania’s Catholic dioceses is expected to be released in the coming days.
The public disclosure of the findings, the result of an almost two-year grand jury investigation, has been delayed while some of the people named in the report have launched legal challenges, arguing the report is inaccurate and releasing it in its current form would violate their constitutional rights to their reputations and to due process of law.
The state Supreme Court has agreed to consider those claims and scheduled the matter for oral argument in September.
In the meantime, the court has ordered identifying information regarding those challenges to be redacted and the nearly 900-page report to be released.
The justices last month appointed a senior jurist, McKean County Judge John Cleland, to serve as a special master to sort out disputes over what must be blacked out.
The court said if the challengers didn’t object to redactions by the attorney general’s office, the report would be released by last Wednesday. That date came and went without the report’s release, suggesting there is a conflict pending before Cleland.
The court now has directed Cleland to resolve any redaction disputes and then release the report by 2 p.m. Tuesday.
The justices also warned the lawyers against “provoking or instigating unnecessary ancillary litigation” over producing the redacted version of the report.
Some details about what’s in the report have been made public, including the disclosure by the state Supreme Court that it will identify more than 300 “predator priests.”
The grand jury focused on allegations going back decades in the Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton dioceses.
The bishop of Pittsburgh told parishioners the report was “a sad and tragic description of events that occurred within the church” and noted almost all reports of abuse in his diocese occurred before 1990.
The report found “diocesan administrators, including the bishops, often dissuaded victims from reporting abuse to police, pressured law enforcement to terminate or avoid an investigation, or conducted their own deficient, biased investigation without reporting crimes against children to the proper authorities.”
Two priests have been charged criminally as a result of the grand jury investigation, but the state’s statute of limitations for child sexual abuse is a barrier that could prevent more charges, considering that many allegations go back decades.