The Bethe-Salpeter Sexual Abuse Investigation: Prosecutors Reveal How Pervasive They Have Been

When Maryland prosecutors asked to release the findings of their recent investigation, they summarized some of the report’s contents, which paint a damning picture. Sexual abuse was so pervasive, the filing said, that some parishes, congregations and schools had more than one abusive priest at the same time — including one congregation where 11 abusive priests practiced over 40 years. Some victims ended up reporting abuse to priests who had been abusive of them.

The investigation received hundreds of thousands of documents after it began in November of last year.

Baltimore Archbishop William Colby said in a statement that the report will likely evoke many emotions, including anger, disgust, and sadness. “Though the Archdiocese has made great strides over the last three decades to rid the Church of the scourge of abuse and to set the standard for how institutions should respond to allegations of child sexual abuse, the report covers a period in the Archdiocese’s past when our response to such allegations was woefully inadequate.”

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 encourage others to come forward,” Brown said.

The report states that some victims waited to report abuse until later in life. If you have a statute of limitations defense in your case, you won’t have recourse if you’re older than 38.

The report states that some victims did not come forward until their parents died to spare them the guilt of knowing about the abuse, while others never intended to tell. The report states that others had repressed their memories of abuse for a long time.

Archbishop William E. Lori and the Baltimore Archdiocese in Charge of a Catholic Church Abuse During the 1960s and 1970s

“To all survivors, I offer my most earnest apology on behalf of the Archdiocese and pledge my continued solidarity and support for your healing. We hear you. We believe you and your courageous voices have made a difference,” Archbishop William E. Lori wrote in a statement Wednesday.

The Archdiocese began making “radical changes” in the 1990s to “end this scourge,” Lori wrote. Instances of abuse have fallen every year and every decade since cases of abuse peaked during the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote, saying, “The Archdiocese is not the same organization it was.”

There should be a way for victims of harms to seek damages from people and institutions responsible for them according to the report.

A Baltimore judge ruled last month that the public should have access to a redacted version of the entire document, which contains allegations against 158 priests over the course of 80 years. The names and titles of 37 people accused of wrongdoing were removed as the officials started to make necessary redacts.

The release of the redacted findings, which were made public Wednesday afternoon,marks a significant development in an ongoing battle over its release and adds to growing evidence from parishes across the country, as numerous similar revelations have rocked the Catholic Church in recent years.

Taylor wrote that there was a need for disclosure and that it may be the only form of justice available to some victims.

He also said Maryland legislators should be able to consider the report’s contents during the ongoing legislative session, which ends April 10. That timeline meant the report became public during Holy Week, which concludes Lent and is considered the most sacred time of year in Christianity ahead of Easter Sunday.

Archbishop Taylor’s report on the Baltimore sex-abuse investigation into a Baltimore teacher’s murder and the case of Catherine Ann Cesnik

Taylor directed prosecutors to completely redact the identities of 37 people from the report before it was released. He also told the attorney general to rephrase some pieces of the document to avoid identifying 60 other people. In the future a more complete version will be released by the court.

“Instead, it went to great lengths to keep the abuse secret,” the court filing said. For decades, the Archdiocese worked to make sure that the perpetrators did not face justice despite reporting many allegations to the police.

The oldest Roman Catholic diocese in the country has faced scrutiny over its handling of abuse allegations.

The grand jury accused him of covering up sexual abuse allegations in the 1980s, when he was bishop of Harrisburg. Keeler later allowed the accused clergy member, now-defrocked John G. Allen, to transfer to Baltimore and continue working. The archdiocese decided to change its plans to name a new school in honor of an adult who had died the previous year.

A 2017 Netflix documentary also placed a spotlight on abuse claims against the late priest A. Joseph Maskell, who taught at a Catholic high school in Baltimore in the 1960s and ’70s. Detectives exhumed his body several years ago while investigating the still unsolved cold case homicide of Catherine Ann Cesnik, a nun who disappeared from a Baltimore shopping center in 1969. At the time of her murder she was a high school teacher.