PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Villanovan
By Jane Donahue
Published: Friday, September 30, 2005
Philadelphia Catholics faced 418 pages of a grisly report detailing five decades of alleged abuse of young parishioners by priests as the grand jury last week ended its investigation of the archdiocese's handling of abuse complaints.
The investigation, operated by the District Attorney of the City of Philadelphia, has been the longest running grand jury inquiry into clergy sexual abuse. The group has been at work since April 2002.
The 40-month effort investigated the cases of 63 priests in the archdiocese who, the grand jury report said, had inappropriate sexual contact with girls and boys. They said the 63 priests had assaulted multiple victims, one assaulting more than 20 boys.
The report blamed Cardinal John Krol and Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, among others, for suppressing knowledge of acts committed by clergy in the Philadelphia area for years. The report accused church officials of relocating the priests rather than removing them from ministry, thus exposing them to larger numbers of children in the archdiocese.
"As an Augustinian priest I am saddened and dismayed by many of the things that have come to light," wrote the Rev. Thomas Martin, O.S.A., professor of theology and director of the Augustinian Institute at Villanova. "It seems to suggest a gross abdication of responsibility on the part of the bishops-they 'protected' their priests but they failed to protect their people!"