After a Pennsylvania grand jury report regarding Catholic sex abuse became public last month, investigations have expanded to other states, including California and Kentucky.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said of his staff of 900, nearly 150 staff members investigated and organized information over the course of two years for the Catholic sex abuse investigation. The grand jury report uncovered more than 1,000 child victims of Catholic sex abuse going all the way back to the 1940s.

After the report was released, the Pennsylvania Attorney General set up a clergy sexual abuse hotline that has received more than 1,100 calls over the course of six weeks. Shapiro has received calls from attorneys general from at least 40 different states that are determined to open their own investigations into Catholic abuse allegations in their own states.

Catholic Sex Abuse Statute of Limitations

Efforts are being made to change laws that indicate many of the sexual abuse charges are ineligible for prosecution due to a statute of limitations. In fact, many of the charges are several decades old.

Pennsylvania lawmakers have found that only two of the many priests named in the grand jury report have their alleged actions fall within the current statute of limitations. The state’s laws might be changed to extend the time to file criminal charges in these Catholic sex abuse cases by creating a retroactive, two-year period of opportunity for those who were abused to file civil lawsuits against the priests and other church leaders who abused them.

Shapiro also argued for an unredacted version of the grand jury report to be made public. The contents released in August redacted the names of nearly two dozen clergy members.

“The Office of Attorney General supports the release of a full, unredacted Report by the Grand Jury in its entirety,” said Attorney General Shapiro in a press release sent by his office. “Every name of a predator priest left redacted means the silencing of a victim’s voice.”

Priests Protected by Catholic Sex Abuse System

The New York Daily Record published an article Aug. 16, 2018, that said the Catholic church had created a system to keep priests who were committing predatory behavior from public exposure. Whenever an allegation of child rape would be made, the accused priest would be sent on a “health leave” to a church-run mental health facility.

Most of the time, priests would return to their parishes after being deemed “cured” of any deviant behavior.

Other priests were assigned to new parishes where no one knew of the allegations. In other cases, the church allegedly blamed the victims or said the victims were making up the allegations and dismissed them.

The Pennsylvania grand jury investigation revealed bishops purportedly would help hide the alleged abuse in order to preserve the church’s reputation. The church hierarchy allegedly knew there was a systemic problem of Catholic sex abuse, but placed the church’s reputation above the importance of protecting the children of its parishes.

If you or someone you love was the victim of Catholic sex abuse in Pennsylvania or any other state, you could be eligible to participate in this lawsuit investigation.