NEW YORK (NY)
CBS News
By Jason Silverstein
August 17, 2018
Editor’s Note: This story contains graphic details about child sex abuse that may offend some readers. CBS News is choosing to publish these detailed accounts from the Grand Jury investigative report because the details are essential to understanding the scope of abuse. The report said the victims deserve to have the public know what happened to them. “We, the members of this grand jury, need you to hear this,” it said.
Sodomy with a crucifix. Child porn in parishes. A naked boy posing as Christ.
Those are just a few of the most disturbing allegations from the landmark grand jury report released this week detailing decades of child sex abuse from priests across Pennsylvania.
The scope of the two-year grand jury report is unprecedented: It identified more than 300 alleged predator priests and more than 1,000 child victims. It’s made more shocking by how extreme many of the allegations are.
Over nearly 1,400 pages, the report graphically describes one horror after another, with children being molested, beaten and raped. The report also lays out how priests used the Catholic faith to manipulate their victims, and how church officials buried the abuse for years.
The report said that nearly every case has passed the statute of limitations for prosecution, even when the priests confessed to their crimes. It recommends eliminating the statute and opening a two-year window for victims to file civil lawsuits now.
Here are some of the cases as they were described in the report.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.