Below is the introduction to the report of the Grand Jury on the conduct of priests in Pennsylvania. It covers six Catholic dioceses in 54 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties.
I. Introduction
We, the members of this grand jury, need you to hear this. We know some of you have heard some of it before. There have been other reports about child sex abuse within the Catholic
Church. But never on this scale. For many of us, those earlier stories happened someplace else,
someplace away. Now we know the truth: it happened everywhere.
We were given the job of investigating child sex abuse in six dioceses - every diocese in
the state except Philadelphia and Altoona -Johnstown, which were the subject of previous grand
juries. These six dioceses account for 54 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties. We heard the testimony
of dozens of witnesses concerning clergy sex abuse. We subpoenaed, and reviewed, half a million
pages of internal diocesan documents. They contained credible allegations against over three
hundred predator priests. Over one thousand child victims were identifiable, from the church's
own records. We believe that the real number - of children whose records were lost, or who were
afraid ever to come forward - is in the thousands.
Most of the victims were boys; but there were girls too. Some were teens; many were prepubescent. 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
As a consequence of the coverup, almost every instance of abuse we found is too old to be
prosecuted. But that is not to say there are no more predators. This grand jury has issued
presentments against a priest in the Greensburg diocese and a priest in the Erie Diocese, who has
been sexually assaulting children within the last decade. We learned of these abusers directly from
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their dioceses - which we hope is a sign that the church is finally changing its ways. And there
may be more indictments in the future; investigation continues.
But we are not satisfied by the few charges we can bring, which represent only a tiny
percentage of all the child abusers we saw. We are sick over all the crimes that willgo unpunished
and uncompensated. This report is our only recourse. We are going to name their names, and
describe what they did - both the sex offenders and those who concealed them. We are going to
shine a light on their conduct, because that is what the victims deserve. And we are going tomake
our recommendations for how the laws should change so that maybe no one will have to conduct
another inquiry like this one. We hereby exercise our historical and statutory right as grand jurors
to inform the public of our findings.
This introduction will briefly describe the sections of the report that follow. We know it is
very long. But the only way to fix these problems is to appreciate their scope.
The dioceses
This section of the report addresses each diocese individually, through two or more case
studies that provide examples of the abuse that occurred and the manner in which diocesan leaders
"managed" it. While each church district had its idiosyncrasies, the pattern was pretty muchthe
same. The main thing was not to help children, but to avoid "scandal." That is not our word, but
theirs; it appears over and over again in the documents we recovered. Abuse complaints were kept
locked up in a "secret archive." That is not our word, but theirs; the church's Code of Canon Law
specifically requires the diocese to maintain such an archive. Only the bishop can have the key.
The strategies were so common that they were susceptible to behavioral analysis by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. For our benefit, the FBI agreed to assign members of its National
Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime to review a significant portion of the evidence received
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by the grand jury. Special agents testified before us that they had identified a series of practices
that regularly appeared, in various configurations, in the diocesan files they had analyzed. It's like
a playbook for concealing the truth:
First, make sure to use euphemisms rather than real words to describe the sexual assaults
in diocese documents. Never say "rape"; say "inappropriate contact" or "boundary issues."
Second, don't conduct genuine investigations with properly trained personnel. Instead,
assign fellow clergy members to ask inadequate questions and then make credibility
determinations about the colleagues with whom they live and work.
Third, for an appearance of integrity, send priests for "evaluation" at church-run psychiatric
treatment centers. Allow these experts to "diagnose" whether the priest was a pedophile, based
largely on the priest's "self-reports," and regardless of whether the priest had actually engaged in
sexual contact with a child.
Fourth, when a priest does have to be removed, don't say why. Tell his parishioners that
he is on "sick leave," or suffering from "nervous exhaustion." Or say nothing at all.
Fifth, even if a priest is raping children, keep providing him housing and living expenses,
although he may be using these resources to facilitate more sexual assaults.
Sixth, if a predator's conduct becomes known to the community, don't remove him from
the priesthood to ensure that no more children will be victimized. Instead, transfer him to a new
location where no one will know he is a child abuser.
Finally and above all, don't tell the police. Child sexual abuse, even short of actual
penetration, is and has for all relevant times been a crime. But don't treat it that way; handle it
like a personnel matter, "in house."
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To be sure, we did come across some cases in which members of law enforcement, despite
what may have been the dioceses' best efforts, learned of clergy sex abuse allegations. Some of
these were many decades ago, and police or prosecutors at the time simply deferred to church
officials. Other reports arose more recently, but involved old conduct, and so were quickly rejected
on statute of limitations grounds without looking into larger patterns and potential continuing risks.
We recognize that victims in these circumstances were understandably disappointed there was no
place they could go to be heard.
But we have heard them, and will tell their stories, using the church's own records, which
we reproduce in the body of the report where appropriate. In the Diocese of Allentown, for
example, documents show that a priest was confronted about an abuse complaint. He admitted,
"Please help me. I sexually molested a boy." The diocese concluded that "the experience will not
necessarily be a horrendous trauma" for the victim, and that the family should just be given "an
opportunity to ventilate." The priest was left in unrestricted ministry for several more years,
despite his own confession.
Similarly in the Diocese of Erie, despite a priest's admission to assaulting at least a dozen
young boys, the bishop wrote to thank him for "all that you have done for God's people.... The
Lord, who sees in private, will reward." Another priest confessed to anal and oral rape of at least
15 boys, as young as seven years old. The bishop later met with the abuser to commend him as "a
person of candor and sincerity," and to compliment him "for the progress he has made" in
controlling his "addiction." When the abuser was finally removed from the priesthood years later,
the bishop ordered the parish not to say why; "nothing else need be noted."
In the Diocese of Greensburg, a priest impregnated a 17-year-old, forged the head pastor's
signature on a marriage certificate, then divorced the girl months later. Despite having sex with a
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minor, despite fathering a child, despite being married and being divorced, the priest was permitted
to stay in ministry thanks to the diocese's efforts to find a "benevolent bishop" in another state
willing to take him on. Another priest, grooming his middle school students for oral sex, taught
them how Mary had to "bite off the cord" and "lick" Jesus clean after he was born. It took another
15 years, and numerous additional reports of abuse, before the diocese finally removed the priest
from ministry.
A priest in the Diocese of Harrisburg abused five sisters in a single family, despite prior
reports that were never acted on. In addition to sex acts, the priest collected samples of the girls'
urine, pubic hair, and menstrual blood. Eventually, his house was searched and his collection was
found. Without that kind of incontrovertible evidence, apparently, the diocese remained unwilling
to err on the side of children even in the face of multiple reports of abuse. As a high-ranking
official said about one suspect priest: "At this point we are at impasse - allegations and no
admission." Years later, the abuser did admit what he had done, but by then it was too late.
Elsewhere we saw the same sort of disturbing disdain for victims. In the Diocese of
Pittsburgh, church officials dismissed an incident of abuse on the ground that the 15-year-old had
"pursued" the priest and "literally seduced" him into a relationship. After the priest was arrested,
the church submitted an evaluation on his behalf to the court. The evaluation acknowledged that
the priest had admitted to "sado-masochistic" activities with several boys - but the sadomasochism was only "mild," and at least the priest was not "psychotic."
The Diocese of Scranton also chose to defend its clergy abusers over its children. A diocese
priest was arrested and convicted after decades of abuse reports that had been ignored by the
church. The bishop finally took action only as the sentencing date approached. He wrote a letter
to the judge, with a copy to a state senator, urging the court to release the defendant to a Catholic
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treatment center. He emphasized the high cost of incarceration. In another case, a priest raped a
girl, got her pregnant, and arranged an abortion. The bishop expressed his feelings in a letter:
"This is a very difficult time in your life, and I realize how upset you are. I too share your grief."
But the letter was not for the girl. It was addressed to the rapist.
The church and child abuse, past and present
We know that the bulk of the discussion in this report concerns events that occurred before
the early 2000's. That is simply because the bulk of the material we received from the dioceses
concerned those events. The information in these documents was previously kept hidden from
those whom it most affected. It is exposed now only because of the existence of this grand jury.
That historical record is highly important, for present and future purposes. The thousands
of victims of clergy child sex abuse in Pennsylvania deserve an accounting, to use as best they can
to try to move on with their lives. And the citizens of Pennsylvania deserve an accounting as well,
to help determine how best to make appropriate improvements in the law.
At the same time, we recognize that much has changed over the last fifteen years. We
agreed to hear from each of the six dioceses we investigated, so that they could inform us about
recent developments in their jurisdictions. In response, five of the bishops submitted statements
to us, and the sixth, the bishop of Erie, appeared before us in person. His testimony impressed us
as forthright and heartfelt. It appears that the church is now advising law enforcement of abuse
reports more promptly. Internal review processes have been established. Victims are no longer
quite so invisible.
But the full picture is not yet clear. We know that child abuse in the church has not yet
disappeared, because we are charging two priests, in two different dioceses, with crimes that fall
within the statute of limitations. One of these priests ejaculated in the mouth of a seven-year-old.
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The other assaulted two different boys, on a monthly basis, for a period of years that ended only
in 2010.
And we know there might be many additional recent victims, who have not yet developed
the resources to come forward either to police or to the church. As we have learned from the
experiences of the victims who we saw, it takes time. We hope this report will encourage others
to speak.
What we can say, though, is that despite some institutional reform, individual leaders of
the church have largely escaped public accountability. Priests were raping little boys and girls,
and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For
decades. Monsignors, auxiliary bishops, bishops, archbishops, cardinals have mostly been
protected; many, including some named in this report, have been promoted. Until that changes,
we think it is too early to close the book on the Catholic Church sex scandal.
Recommendations
Grand jurors are just regular people who are randomly selected for service. We don't get
paid much, the hours are bad, and the work can be heartbreaking. What makes it worthwhile is
knowing we can do some kind of justice. We spent 24 months dredging up the most depraved
behavior, only to find that the laws protect most of its perpetrators, and leave its victims with
nothing. We say laws that do that need to change.
First, we ask the Pennsylvania legislature to stop shielding child sexual predators behind
the criminal statute of limitations. Thanks to a recent amendment, the current law permits victims
to come forward until age 50. That's better than it was before, but still not good enough; we should
just get rid of it. We heard from plenty of victims who are now in their 50's, 60's, 70's, and even
one who was 83 years old. We want future victims to know they will always have the force of the
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criminal law behind them, no matter how long they live. And we want future child predators to
know they should always be looking over their shoulder - no matter how long they live.
Second, we call for a "civil window" law, which would let older victims sue the diocese
for the damage inflicted on their lives when they were kids. We saw these victims; they are marked
for life. Many of them wind up addicted, or impaired, or dead before their time. The law in force
right now gives child sex abuse victims twelve years to sue, once they turn 18. But victims who
are already in their 30's and older fell under a different law; they only got two years. For victims
in this age range, the short two-year period would have expired back in the 1990's or even earlier
- long before revelations about the institutional nature of clergy sex abuse. We think that's
unacceptable. These victims ran out of time to sue before they even knew they had a case; the
church was still successfully hiding its complicity. Our proposal would open a limited "window"
offering them a chance, finally, to be heard in court. All we're asking is to give those two years
back.
Third, we want improvement to the law for mandated reporting of abuse. We saw from
diocesan records that church officials, going back decades, were insisting they had no duty to
report to the government when they learned of child abuse in their parishes. New laws make it
harder to take that position; but we want them tighter. The law penalizes a "continuing" failure to
report, but only if the abuse of "the child" is "active." We're not sure what that means and we
don't want any wiggle room. Make it clear that the duty to report
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