PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Nancy Phillips, Mark Fazlollah and Craig R. McCoy
Inquirer Staff Writers
The grand jury investigating sex abuse in the Philadelphia Archdiocese has prepared a report that documents decades of assaults on children by more than 50 priests - but calls for no new criminal charges.
The report, more than 500 pages long, harshly criticizes church leaders for shielding abusers.
Drafted by prosecutors in District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham's office, the report is now in the hands of the Common Pleas Court judge overseeing the secret probe.
The report is expected to be made public next month, completing the nation's longest-running investigation into clergy sex abuse.
Prosecutors and grand jurors have spent more than three years gathering evidence and hearing often-wrenching testimony from hundreds of witnesses. They also heard from priests and church leaders, including Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, who headed the archdiocese from 1988 to 2003.
To date, the probe has resulted in a single arrest: that of a priest who pleaded guilty this year to repeatedly assaulting a 15-year-old boy.
Detectives from the District Attorney's Office fanned out across the region on Friday, delivering letters to alleged abusers, alerting them that the report would soon make public accounts of their alleged attacks on minors, and giving them a chance to challenge the grand jury's account.