Good Men’s Project blog
August 24, 2019
By Brian Clites
It has been one year since the Pennsylvania grand jury report named 300 sexually abusive Roman Catholic priests in the state. After an 18-month investigation, the grand jury concluded that “over one thousand child victims were identifiable, from the church’s own records.”
At the same time, the jury also noted that the real numbers could be much higher. It said,
“We believe that the real number – of children whose records were lost or who were afraid ever to come forward – is in the thousands.”
As a scholar who has spent the last eight years interviewing Catholic survivors of clergy sex abuse, I know that even though there were only a few convictions in Pennsylvania, the release of the grand jury report was a watershed moment for survivors.
The report opened up space for new conversations and helped communities come to terms with the horror of their past.
Grand juries comprise up to 23 citizens. They investigate potential crimes under the leadership and jurisdiction of a prosecutor.
Each state governs the amount of time that victims have to prosecute a given crime, which is called the statute of limitations. Although the Pennsylvania grand jury report spurred other states to extend their statute of limitations, Pennsylvania has not.
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