April 5 (UPI) — The Maryland Attorney General’s Office has released its 456-page report into the Archdiocese of Baltimore, alleging decades of “horrific and repeated” church sex abuse involving hundreds of children.
The redacted report, released Wednesday, claims 156 Catholic clergy members, seminarians, deacons, teachers, and other employees abused at least 600 children over a period of six decades.
“From the 1940s through 2002, over a hundred priests and other archdiocese personnel engaged in horrific and repeated abuse of the most vulnerable children in their communities while archdiocese leadership looked the other way,” the report reads. “Time and again, members of the church’s hierarchy resolutely refused to acknowledge allegations of child sexual abuse for as long as possible.”
In 2018, the attorney general’s office opened an email and telephone hotline for people to report clergy abuse. Since then, it has received more than 300 reports from victims, relatives, and witnesses, as well as “hundreds of thousands of documents” including treatment reports and personnel records.
The results of the four-year investigation were first revealed in a November court filing to make the report public.
“As shown in the report, both boys and girls were abused, with ages ranging from preschool through young adulthood,” former Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosch said in November.
On Wednesday, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown met with survivors before releasing the report.
“Today certainly in Maryland is a day of reckoning and a day of accounting,” Brown told reporters. “This is a full accounting. There are details of repeated torturous, terrorizing, depraved abuse.”
“What was consistent throughout the stories was the absolute authority and power these abusive priests and the church leadership held over survivors, their families and their communities,” Brown added.
“They told their victims the abuse was God’s will. Some threatened that the victim or the victim’s family would go to hell if they told anyone. They attempted to normalize sexual behavior as roughhousing,” the report said.
While the attorney general promised to leave the abuse hotline and email open to other survivors, many of those named in the report have died or the statute of limitations has passed.
“While it may be too late for the survivors to see criminal justice served, we hope that exposing the archdiocese’s transgressions to the fullest extent possible will bring some measure of accountability and perhaps encourage others to come forward,” Brown said. “But for an insurmountable legal obstacle, we will do everything we can to bring those abusers and those who enabled them to justice.”
On Wednesday, the Archbishop of Baltimore Rev. William E. Lori issued an apology.
“My letter to you about this painful subject can only begin with a heartfelt apology. I offer this as my imperfect attempt,” the Lori wrote.
“I want to express my gratitude to the victim-survivors who have come forward. Your courage has led to change. That change has made the church a safer place for young people,” he said.
“To the victim-survivors, their families and all the faithful of the archdiocese: I see the pain and destruction that was perpetuated by representatives of the church and perpetuated by the failures that allowed this evil to fester, and I am deeply sorry.”
