PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Forward
By E.J. KESSLER
September 30, 2005
Philadelphia's "tough cookie" Jewish district attorney is feuding with the Catholic Church over a report her office issued last week alleging five decades of child sexual abuse by priests in the local archdiocese.
The district attorney, Lynne Abraham, released the 418-page grand jury report, the culmination of a 40-month investigation, at a September 21 press conference. The report did not charge any individual priests with crimes, noting that the statute of limitations had expired, but it described in graphic detail how at least 63 priests and perhaps many more abused "hundreds of child victims." It also charged that a "cover-up" by archdiocese officials at all levels led to abusive priests being "left quietly in place or 'recycled' to unsuspecting new parishes — vastly expanding the number of children who were abused," in addition to hindering prosecutions.
"[I]n its callous, calculating manner, the Archdiocese 'handling' of the abuse scandal was at least as immoral as the abuse itself," the report asserts.
The Philadelphia Archdiocese, at a press conference the same day, pushed back ferociously, with an attorney for the church, William Sasso, calling the report "incredibly biased and anti-Catholic."
The abuse report also is proving embarrassing for Pennsylvania's junior senator, Rick Santorum, a Republican. Santorum, a staunchly conservative Catholic, has spoken out strongly against priest pedophilia in liberal states such as Massachusetts.