A grand jury released a report in August saying that there have been more than 1,000 individuals they identified who were victims of sexual abuse by a Catholic church priest or church leader in Pennsylvania.

The Grand Jury looked at six of eight dioceses in the Keystone State and found that pedophile priests or church leaders had molested children in every single one and that church leaders went to great lengths to cover up the abuse.

Overview: Pennsylvania Catholic Church Sex Abuse Grand Jury Report

The Grand Jury that put together the report about Pennsylvania Catholic priest sex abuse looked at six Pennsylvania dioceses: Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and Scranton. Philadelphia and Altoona-Johnstown were not included in this report because those dioceses were examined by a different grand jury previously.

According to the Grand Jury, child sex abuse was allegedly performed by more than 300 pedophile priests or church leaders across the six dioceses, which encompass 54 out of 67 counties in Pennsylvania.

The Grand Jury based its report on witness testimony and internal church documents.

“We subpoenaed, and reviewed, half a million pages of internal diocesan documents,” the Grand Jury wrote. “They contained credible allegations against over three hundred predator priests. Over one thousand child victims were identifiable, from the church’s own records.”

The victims included boys and girls who were teenagers as well as prepubescent children.

Church leaders went to great lengths to cover up the abuse that was occurring, the Grand Jury concluded. “All of them were brushed aside, in every part of the state, by church leaders who preferred to protect the abusers and their institution above all,” they wrote.

While the Grand Jury looked at the actions of priests over the last seven decades, it also found instances of priests sexually assaulting victims in the last 10 years.

However, because of the extensive coverup, many of the instances have passed the statute of limitations, which means that the pedophile priests can no longer be prosecuted, the Grand Jury explains.

In the report, the Grand Jury includes the list of names of “both the sex offenders and those who concealed them” in each diocese.

Grand Jury Recommendations

As the Grand Jury explained, due to the extensive coverup, many of those guilty of sexually assaulting children cannot be charged. The grand jurors made a list of several recommendations to combat this issue and others:

• Get rid of the statute of limitations on those who are victims of sexual abuse as children. While the statute of limitations was recently extended to victims until they reach the age of 50, there are many victims who are older than that and still deserve help.
• Create a two-year window in which civil lawsuits can be filed for child abuse victims who were not able to file lawsuits previously. The state changed the window from two-years to until the victim is age 30 to file a civil lawsuit over child sex abuse allegations, but for some victims, they still don’t qualify. The Grand Jury is asking the state to give older victims “their two years back,” something they say that at least six other states have done.
• Make current laws about penalties for those that fail to report child abuse more clear.
• Keep law enforcement from making “non-disclosure” or confidentiality agreements in exchange for making sex abuse lawsuits go away.