More than 300 Pennsylvania priests committed sexual abuse over decades

More than 300 “predator priests” were found to have committed sexual abuse in Pennsylvania, harming more than 1,000 children, according to a grand jury report released by the state supreme court on Tuesday.

The near-900-page report is the result of one of the largest US investigations into sexual abuse in the Catholic church. In painful detail, it showcases how for decades one of the most powerful churches in the world hid the abuse and suffering of children.

“There have been other reports about child sex abuse within the Catholic church,” the report said. “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.”

The incidents described include a priest who impregnated a minor and helped her get an abortion, then was allowed to stay in the ministry; a priest who confessed to the oral and anal rape of at least 15 boys, including one as young as seven; and a priest who collected the urine, pubic hair and menstrual blood of girls he abused in his home.

The report said “almost every instance of abuse” was too old to be prosecuted, though two priests were identified and charged because of the report, including one who sexually assaulted two children monthly for several years until 2010.

“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,” the report said.

Twenty-three grand jurors – including practicing Catholics – worked for two years to compile the report based on internal documents surrendered by the six dioceses it investigated and testimony from victims. More than a dozen priests appeared before the grand jury and “most of them admitted what they had done”, the report said.

The grand jury wrote that they also consulted the FBI, which analyzed cover-ups to find what the grand jury described as “a playbook for concealing the truth”.

The grand jury said it was able to identify more than 1,000 mostly male child victims, but expected there were thousands more because of lost records and victims who have not come forward.

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