The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has revealed the results of a grand jury probe into sexual abuse by the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania and the results are staggeringly sickening.
Vox reports: ‘Some of the priests’ names in the report have been redacted. The report’s release was delayed after several clergy members named in the report filed legal challenges against its publication. Shapiro told reporters at a news conference that the report details “systematic coverup by senior church officials in Pennsylvania and at the Vatican.”…The report, which is often graphic and disturbing, details widespread sexual abuse and rape by priests of both female and male minors, many of whom used the language and rhetoric of their office to convince their victims that their sexual abuse was “holy” or desired by God. The breadth of the accusations and the graphic specificity of the charges make the report a watershed moment in the history of abuse in the Catholic Church: one that will take the church decades to recover from.
The Washington Post reports: ‘The report is an index of frightful physical and psychological violence. It recounts how one priest allegedly abused five sisters in a single family; how another confessed to raping 15 boys as young as 7; how a victim was bound and whipped with leather straps; and how a victim died from an overdose of painkillers taken for a back injury suffered during a particularly violent attack. Most of the victims, the court said, will never be able to pursue cases against their alleged attackers, as state law gives victims of child sex abuse until they are 30 to undertake civil suits, 50 to file criminal charges.’
“This group of priests used whips, violence, and sadism in raping their victims,” reads one line of the nearly 900-page document, which outlines horrific abuse that occurred in Pittsburgh and five other Catholic dioceses, including Allentown, across the state.
The report said the men gave a specific gift to children they favored, something they could wear that would mark them as prime targets for abuse. Zirwas “had told me that they, the priests, would give their boys, their altar boys, or their favorite boys these crosses,” George told the grand jury. “So he gave me a big gold cross to wear.”
He remembered the rectory photo session as a degrading experience. “It is still really hard to get it out there that you were in a room when you were 14 or 15 and getting naked pictures taken from priests,” he said.
However bad you thought the corruption among Catholic clergy and bishops was, the reality is much worse. pic.twitter.com/AN8gPLwAwo
— Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) August 14, 2018
