UNITED STATES
Center for Inquiry
September 11, 2018
By Leslie C. Griffin
The stories of sexual abuse are seemingly unending. A Pennsylvania grand jury gave us horrible details of seventy years of sexual abuse in six Roman Catholic dioceses. The report revealed that over 1,000 children were harmed by over 300 clergy. The grand jury tells us, for example, that
One of these priests ejaculated in the mouth of a seven-year-old. Some were manipulated with alcohol or pornography. Some were made to masturbate their assailants, or were groped by them. Some were raped orally, some vaginally, some anally. But all of them were brushed aside, in every part of the state, by church leaders who preferred to protect the abusers and their institution above all.
Their bishops covered the abuse up instead of doing anything to help children. There are probably thousands more victims, unreported or dead.
Some people named in the report argued in court that the report shouldn’t even be published. As usual, they were focused on the perpetrators’ needs instead of the victims’ rights. To date, their names are blocked out in the released report.
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