Pennsylvania grand jury report details 300 priests who sexually molested thousands of children over 70 years
By Associated Press and Jennifer Smith
Daily Mail
August 14, 2018
A bombshell report by a grand jury in Pennsylvania has extensively detailed for the first time how 300 priests sexually abused more than 1,000 children and how church leaders, some of whom are still alive, covered it up.
The report refers to six different diocese where children were raped, plied with alcohol, or forced to perform for priests to produce pornographic material over the course of several years.
Most of the victims are boys but some girls are also included. According to the report, church leaders covered the abusive acts up by claiming priests or clergymen were playing around or 'wrestling' with the children.
The 800-page report said more than 300 clergy committed the abuse over a period decades, beginning in the mid-1950s.
But because so many are now dead or their alleged crimes falls outside the statute of limitations, only two have been charged as a result of the investigation.
They are John Thomas Sweeney who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy in July. In 1992, he made the fourth grader perform oral sex on him.
The other priest is David Poulson. He was charged in May with indecently assaulting two boys over the course of several years. One was eight and the other was 15 when he allegedly began abusing them.
As part of the investigation, records from the dioceses of Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton were analyzed.
Combined, the dioceses serviced more than half of Pennsylvania's 3.2million Catholic residents
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said the two-year probe found a systematic cover-up by senior church officials in Pennsylvania and at the Vatican.
'Today, Pennsylvanians can learn the extent of sexual abuse in the dioceses and for the first time we can begin to understand the systematic cover up by church leaders that followed,' he said.
'The cover-up was sophisticated.
'And all the while, shockingly, church leadership kept records of the abuse and the cover-up.
'These documents, from the dioceses' own 'Secret Archives,' formed the backbone of this investigation,' he said at a news conference in Harrisburg.
The abuse ranged from groping and masturbation to anal, oral and vaginal rape.
'Church officials routinely and purposefully described the abuse as horseplay and wrestling and inappropriate conduct.
'It was none of those things. It was child sexual abuse, including rape,' Shapiro said.
The panel concluded that a succession of Catholic bishops and other diocesan leaders tried to shield the church from bad publicity and financial liability by covering up abuse, failing to report accused clergy to police and discouraging victims from going to law enforcement.
Yet the grand jury's work won't result in justice for the vast majority of those who say they were molested by priests as children.
While the probe yielded charges against two clergymen - including a priest who has since pleaded guilty, and another who allegedly forced his accuser to say confession after each sex assault - the other priests identified as perpetrators are either dead or will avoid arrest because their alleged crimes are too old to prosecute under state law.
'We are sick over all the crimes that will go unpunished and uncompensated,' the grand jury said.
The document comes at a time of renewed scrutiny and fresh scandal at the highest levels of the U.S. Catholic Church.
Pope Francis stripped 88-year-old Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of his title and ordered him to a lifetime of prayer and penance amid allegations that McCarrick had for years sexually abused boys and had sexual misconduct with adult seminarians.
Among those criticized in the report is Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the former longtime bishop of Pittsburgh who now leads the Washington archdiocese, for what it said was his part in the concealment of clergy sexual abuse.
Wuerl, one of the highest-profile cardinals in the United States, released a statement Tuesday that said he had 'acted with diligence, with concern for the victims and to prevent future acts of abuse.'
He said ahead of the report's release that he expected to be criticized in it.
The state Supreme Court had set a Tuesday deadline to publicly release a redacted version of the roughly 900-page report.
Some current and former clergy named in the report went to court to prevent its release, arguing it violated their constitutional rights to reputation and due process of law.
The state Supreme Court said the public had a right to see it, but ruled the names of priests and others who objected to the findings would be blacked out pending a September hearing on their claims.
The high court says it'll consider their claims in September, but in the meantime ordered the report released with the identities of those clergy members concealed.
Shapiro said he wants an un-redacted report to be issued.
'Let me be very clear — my office is not satisfied with the release of a redacted report.
'Every redaction represents an incomplete story of abuse that deserves to be told,' he said.
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MASSIVE PILE OF EXCREMENT HITS THE FAN IN PA.
by Bob Walsh
A very nasty, very messy but somewhat redacted grand jury report came out Tuesday. It was the result of a major investigation into sexual abuse by Catholic clergy over a period of decades covering much (but not all) of Pennsylvania.
The report said that Cardinal Donald Wuerl was largely responsible for this mess, covering up for and transferring priests with histories of sexual abuse against children. Unfortunately for him the grand jury got ahold of a LOT of previously secret records. There are over 1,000 known and named victims. The actual number could be several times that.
The report asserts that more than 300 members of the clergy committed abuses in six diocese over a period covering several decades. The abusers are known by name. At the time much of this abuse occurred Donald Wuerl was that Archbishop for this area. He is now a Cardinal in D.C. He left Pennsylvania is 2006.
The Lord truly does work in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This report does not even cover the Philadelphia diocese. How many children in Philadelphia were sexually abused by these wolves in shepherd’s clothing? And this has gone on all over the country, not just in Pennsylvania. How many children have been raped by priests in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and all the other dioceses in the United States?
The cover up goes all the way up to the Vatican. Even Pope Francis has done nothing to make sure the rape of children by priests does not take place.
One solution, it appears to me, would be to let priests marry.
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