PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Craig R. McCoy
Inquirer Staff Writer
The details of the sex assaults were horrific. The access to the church's Secret Archive, extraordinary.
In hundreds of unrelenting pages, the report by a Philadelphia grand jury into sexual abuse by clergy in the archdiocese mounted a blistering denunciation of both the abusive priests and a hierarchy it said sheltered them.
The report identified 63 priests as abusers but took pains to say that there were more.
In all, the report said, victims and others had leveled complaints against 169 priests who have served in the archdiocese since 1967.
"These are not necessarily the worst offenders with the most victims," the report says of the 63. But it said that "their cases provide the most complete picture" available of the scandal within the diocese.