The Maryland Prosecutor's Office publishes the report of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church: 156 religious accused and 600 victims

By Lea Skene and Brian Witte -

The Maryland Attorney General's Office released a partially redacted version of the court brief detailing allegations of sexual abuse against 156 Catholic clergy over more than six decades and with more than 600 victims (although "it is possible that the number be much larger," he points out).

Its partial publication is a significant advance in the ongoing legal battle over whether it should be made public in its entirety, and adds to mounting evidence of similar cases in parishes across the country that have rocked this church in recent years.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, who began his tenure in January, released the report after meeting with a group of victims to summarize the findings and thank them for coming forward.

The state legislature also passed a bill on Wednesday, sent to Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, for his signature, aimed at ending the statute of limitations on civil lawsuits related to abuse.

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"The irrefutable story uncovered by this investigation is one of widespread, pernicious and persistent abuse by priests and other Archdiocese personnel," Brown told a news conference, "it is also a story of repeated cover-ups of those abuses." .

Brian Frosh, Brown's predecessor at the head of the Prosecutor's Office, began the investigation in 2019 and announced its conclusion last November: he assured that more than 100,000 pages of documents dating back to the 1940s had been reviewed, and there had been talk with hundreds of victims and witnesses.

File photo of the facade of a Catholic temple. Armando Franca / AP

The contents of the report were not disclosed at the time because it includes information obtained from Catholic Church officials through grand jury subpoenas, which are confidential in Maryland.

State attorneys asked the court for permission to release the nearly 500-page document that

over the past 80 years.

Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Robert Taylor ruled in March that a redacted version, which omits the names and titles of the 37 defendants, should be made public.

Passage of the bill to end the state's statute of limitations was made possible after similar proposals failed in recent years.

The governor said that he supports it.

Victims of child sexual abuse in Maryland currently cannot sue after their 38th birthday.

The bill would remove this age limit and allow retroactive lawsuits.

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Baltimore Archbishop William Lori said in a statement Monday that while the archdiocese has made progress in how it addresses allegations of abuse over the past three decades, the report "covers a period in the past" in which the The church's response to those accusations "was inadequate."

In addition to removing the names of the 37 defendants from the document, the judge told the prosecutor to paraphrase parts of the report to avoid identifying another 60 people.

The court will consider whether to disclose a fuller version in the future.

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The report released Tuesday paints a grim picture in any case, detailing that some parishes, schools and congregations had more than one abuser at the same time, such as St. Mark Parish in Catonsville, where 11 abusers lived. and worked from 1964 to 2004.

“The astonishing pervasiveness of the abuse underscores the culpability of the Church hierarchy,” the report states, “the sheer number of abusers and victims, and the depravity of the abusers’ conduct and the frequency with which they were given opportunity to continue preying on children is impressive.

In some cases, the victims reported the crimes to priests but these were also abusers, the investigation said, which revealed that the archdiocese failed to report many accusations to the authorities, nor did it conduct the relevant investigations or remove the abusers or restrict them from approaching. to the kids.