PITTSBURGH (PA)
The Huffington Post
August 15, 2018
By Carol Kuruvilla
A Pennsylvania grand jury identified more than 300 alleged “predator priests.” Here are just some of the stories.
For decades, stories about clerical sexual abuse committed by Pennsylvania Catholic priests were reportedly locked away in the church’s secret archives.
These old secrets exploded into the light Tuesday with the publication of a grand jury report into six of Pennsylvania’s eight Roman Catholic dioceses.
The jurors’ 884-page report allowed Pennsylvania Catholics to finally grasp the extent of the abuse ― and cover-up ― in six dioceses: Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton. Over the course of two years, jurors identified 301 “predator priests” and more than 1,000 victims.
Jurors heard stories of boys and girls being groped. They heard about cases of kids becoming victims of child pornography, being made to masturbate with assailants, and being raped orally, vaginally and anally.
Underpinning the horrific alleged crimes in the report are hundreds of pages of documents from the church’s secret archives that the jurors claim show that senior church officials knew the abuse was happening and failed to act properly. Catholic leaders, including former bishops, actively worked to protect abusers and the church’s public reputation, while brushing aside victims’ reports, the jurors claim.
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