(NJ)
NorthJersey.com [Woodland Park NJ]
March 9, 2025
By Deena Yellin
- New Jersey’s clergy abuse victims and their advocates have been waiting seven years for the state to issue a report on clergy abuse.
- Newly released documents show the Catholic Church’s quest to quash the investigation.
A slew of court documents recently unsealed by New Jersey’s Supreme Court reveals the secret quest of the Catholic Church to quash the state’s grand jury investigation of decades of clergy sexual abuse.
The court has scheduled a hearing next month that pits the state Attorney General’s Office against the Catholic Diocese of Camden over the issue of whether the state can go forward with its grand jury investigation of clergy abuse.
After a 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report found that hundreds of Catholic priests had sexually abused at least 1,000 children, New Jersey’s Attorney General’s Office launched its own investigation.
For nearly seven years, New Jersey’s clergy abuse victims and their advocates have been waiting for the state to issue a report. Many have grown frustrated by the apparent standstill, and the Attorney General’s Office has been tight-lipped about its progress. Grand jury investigations are confidential, and the state declined to reveal whether a grand jury had been convened.
Last month, The Record and NorthJersey.com revealed the reason for the delay after it discovered a once-sealed transcript of a court hearing that showed that the Camden Diocese successfully challenged the state’s effort to conduct a grand jury investigation.
On Thursday, all the court records revealing the secret battle were released by the judge. The court will also rule on whether the state can empanel a grand jury. If so, the state could move forward with its investigation and release a detailed report on clergy abusers and a cover-up by the church. The hearing is scheduled for the court’s April 28-29 session.
First Assistant Attorney General Lyndsay Ruotolo said the commitment of the attorney general’s Clergy Abuse Task Force to the investigation “has never wavered.”
“For years, we have been seeking to convene a grand jury to present evidence collected by prosecutors across the state regarding decades of sexual abuse, the conditions that made that abuse possible, and the systematic failures to prevent it — and to allow the grand jury, as the conscience of our community, to make recommendations to ensure widespread abuse by clergy can never happen again,” she said in a written statement.