Catholic Church
US priests sexually abused hundreds of children
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown comments on the release of the redacted report on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore. photo
© Kim Hairston/The Baltimore Sun/AP/dpa
Hundreds of thousands of documents from the US Attorney’s Office in the state of Maryland document a crime of enormous proportions – for decades priests molested children from their parishes.
Catholic ministers and other church workers in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, US, sexually abused more than 600 children from the 1940s to 2002. The perpetrators repeatedly and horribly abused the most vulnerable members of their communities while archdiocesan leadership turned a blind eye, the Maryland state attorney’s office said in an investigative report released Wednesday (local time).
“The undeniable story unearthed by this investigation is one of pervasive and ongoing abuse by priests and other archdiocesan officials,” it said. The investigation also shows that the archdiocese tried to cover up the abuse. The public prosecutor wrote that it was more important to those responsible to avoid a scandal and bad press than to protect the children. In the report, 156 perpetrators are mostly listed by name. The true number of victims is believed to be much higher than the more than 600 children known to exist, it said.
The investigation is based on hundreds of thousands of documents going back decades, as well as testimonies from hundreds of victims and witnesses, the report said. The perpetrators often singled out children who were particularly isolated or vulnerable because of their personality or living conditions. They would then have presented themselves to you as friends and protectors. The victims were often children who were particularly closely connected to the church, such as altar boys or choir members.