The Archdiocese of Baltimore, which is the oldest Roman Catholic diocese in the country, has long faced scrutiny over its handling of abuse allegations.
BALTIMORE (AP) — The Maryland Attorney General’s Office has publicly released a redacted version of an investigative report detailing sex abuse allegations against more than 150 Catholic priests and examining the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s response.
The redacted findings were made public Wednesday afternoon, marking a significant development in an ongoing legal battle over their release and adding to growing evidence from parishes across the country as numerous similar revelations have rocked the Catholic Church in recent years. Also on Wednesday, the state Legislature passed a bill to end a statute of limitations on abuse-related civil lawsuits, sending it to the governor.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, who took office in January, released the report. Before a news conference Wednesday, he met with a group of victims to give them a summary of the findings and thank them for coming forward.
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“What we learned is that the incontrovertible history uncovered by this investigation is one of pervasive, pernicious and persistent abuse by priests and other Archdiocese personnel,” Brown said during the news conference. “It’s also a history of repeated coverup of that abuse by the Catholic Church.”
Brown’s predecessor Brian Frosh launched the probe in 2019 and announced its completion in November, saying investigators had reviewed over 100,000 pages of documents dating back to the 1940s and interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses. The report’s contents weren’t immediately released because they include information obtained from church officials via grand jury subpoenas, which are confidential proceedings in Maryland.
Lawyers for the state asked a court for permission to release the nearly 500-page document, which identifies 156 priests accused of abusing more than 600 victims over the past 80 years, and Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Robert Taylor ruled last month that a redacted version should be made public. Officials recently started making the necessary redactions, including removing the names and titles of 37 people accused of wrongdoing.
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