NEW ALLEGATIONS AGAINST HUNDREDS OF PA. PRIESTS

Leaders hid child sex abuse by hundreds of priests, it finds.

Bishops and other leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania covered up child sexual abuse by more than 300 priests over a period of 70 years, persuading victims not to report the abuse and police officers not to investigate it, according to a report issued by a grand jury Tuesday.

Thereport, which covered six of the state’s eight Catholic dioceses and found more than 1,000 identifiable victims, is the broadest examination yet by a U.S. government agency of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. There have been 10 previous reports by grand juries and attorneys general in the United States, according to the research and advocacy group BishopAccountability.org, but those examined single dioceses or counties.

The report catalogs horrific instances of abuse, including a priest who raped a young girl in the hospital after she had her tonsils out, and another priest who was allowed to stay in ministry after impregnating a 17-yearold girl, forging a signature on a marriage certificate and then divorcing the girl.

“Despite some institutional reform, individual leaders of the church have largely escaped public accountability,” the grand jury wrote. “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. For decades.”

The grand jury added that the church officials named in their report have been protected and some have been promoted. “Until that changes, we think it is too early to close the book on the Catholic Church sex scandal ,” the jury wrote.

The report said that church officials followed a “playbook for concealing the truth:” minimize the abuse using words like “inappropriate contact” instead of “rape”; assign priests untrained in sexual abuse cases to investigate their colleagues; when removing an accused priest, don’t inform the community of the real reasons.

“Tell his parishioners that he is on ‘sick leave,’ or suffering from‘ nervous exhaustion.’ Or say nothing at all,” the report said.

Attorney General Josh Shapiro, whose office conducted the investigation, said in a news conference, “They protected their institution at all costs. As the grand jury found, the church showed a complete disdain for victims.”

Victims expressed relief that Shapiro and his agents had conducted the investigation after the victims’ efforts to get church officials to take action went nowhere.

“I had gone to two bishops with allegations over five years, and they ignored and down played my allegations,” said the Rev. James Faluszczak, an Erie priest on extended leave who was abused as a child and who testified before the grand jury.

“It’s that very management of secrets that has given cover to predators.”

In statements released on Tuesday, Pennsylvania’s Catholic bishops called for prayers for victims and for the church, promised greater openness and said that measures instituted in recent years were already making the church safer.

“The Diocese of Erie will not shroud abusers in secrecy — no matter who they are or how long ago the abuse occurred,” Bishop Lawrence Persico said in a statement. “We acknowledge the abuses of the past and are committed to being transparent with our decisions going forward.”

There has been no comprehensive measurement of the full scope of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the United States, though some have tried. American abuse survivors have pushed for years for the government to undertake a nationwide inquiry similar to the one conducted in Australia, where a royal commission spent four years examining the sexual abuse of children by a variety of religious and civic institutions, including the Catholic Church.