Another One

More than 600 victims were sexually abused by 158 Maryland priests
[www.nydailynews.com]

More than 600 young victims were sexually abused by 158 Roman Catholic priests in the Archdiocese of Baltimore over the past 80 years, an investigation by the Maryland attorney general found.

The nearly four-year-long probe into sexual abuse and cover-up efforts by the archdiocese looked at “hundreds of thousands of pages of documents” and conducted interviews with victims, witnesses, former priests and employees of the archdiocese.

Attorney General Brian Frosh said his office compiled its findings in a 456-page report. On Thursday, he filed a motion in Baltimore Circuit Court to make the report public.

“Now is the time for reckoning,” the filing said. “Publicly airing the transgressions of the Church is critical to holding people and institutions accountable and improving the way sexual abuse allegations are handled going forward.”

The report, titled “Clergy Abuse in Maryland,” identifies 115 Catholic priests who were either prosecuted for sexual abuse or at least publicly identified by the archdiocese as having been “credibly accused” of sexual abuse. It also includes 43 priests who were accused of abuse but were never publicly identified by the archdiocese.

Both boys and girls were abused by clergy, the report says. Victims’ ages ranged from preschool through young adulthood.

The investigation also found that the archdiocese failed to report or properly investigate allegations of abuse, remove the alleged abusers from the ministry, or even keep them away from children.

“Instead, it went to great lengths to keep the abuse secret,” according to the 35-page filing. The archdiocese even worked to ensure that abusers escaped from justice when some cases were eventually reported to the police.

“For decades, survivors reported sexual abuse perpetrated by Catholic priests and for decades the Church covered up the abuse rather than holding the abusers accountable and protecting its congregations,” the filing said. “The Archdiocese of Baltimore was no exception.”

Later on Thursday, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore released a letter apologizing to the victims “who were harmed by a minister of the Church and who were harmed by those who failed to protect them, who failed to respond to them with care and compassion and who failed to hold abusers accountable for their sinful and criminal behavior.”



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2022 06:13PM by Steve G..

...and still they are tax free with an ability to effect political discourse and settle civil suits on the back of their sincere adherents.

I will guess that 600 is a low estimate that they could quickly verify.

The thing that surprises me the most is that this investigation only started 4 years ago. There was an unofficial church compiled list of pedophile priests that leaked... 9 (?) years ago. I would have thought that would have jump started investigations in any diocese that hadn't already cleaned house. Maybe Maryland was one of those regions where throwing out all the pedophiles would have resulted in there being no more priests left to perform services.

"I read this in the paper this morning: New York City has a priest shortage. So you see, there is some good news in the world. ... To give you an idea how bad it is, earlier today in Brooklyn an alter boy had to grope himself." —David Letterman" archive.org, Nov. 4 2013

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In tha 360. MRF User Map

Yet certain people would have you believe drag queens reading stories are sexual groomers...

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