What the latest investigations into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church mean

The nearly 900-page report landed like a grenade when Josh Shapiro, then-Attorney General of Pennsylvania, delivered it to a podium in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, five years ago. It describes widespread child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church throughout Pennsylvania, and a “sophisticated” cover-up by senior church officials. Abuse victims and their families, sometimes visibly crying, joined Mr. Shapiro on stage.

More than 300 priests were found to have abused children over the course of seven decades, at least 1,000 of them. The report echoed at the highest levels of the Church, with the Vatican expressing “shame and sadness” at the findings. And it reached the pews, too: A Gallup poll the following year found that out more than a third of Catholics in the United States considered leaving the faith because of “recent news of sexual abuse of young people by priests.”

In the years since the Pennsylvania report was published, it has led to some 20 other investigations of the Catholic Church by prosecutors.

Now the results of those investigations are rolling out, once again drawing attention to the widespread abuse scandal and providing new details in some cases. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul released a report in May that found more than 450 credibly accused child molesters in the Catholic Church in Illinois since 1950. Nearly 2,000 children under the age of 18 were victims.

These reports have not led to much criminal prosecution: many suspects have died or statutes of limitations have expired. But victims of clergy sexual abuse and their lawyers say the reports have had a lasting impact in other ways. In some states, the reports have helped convince lawmakers to extend time limits for victims to sue alleged abusers. And many victims say such public and official acknowledgment of what happened is a welcome step.

“People say this is about sex, or a more academic analysis describes it as about power,” says Terence McKiernan, the president of BishopAccountability.org, an advocacy group. “But it is also about information.”

Investigations have been completed in seven states so far and others are continuing, according to CHILD USAadvocacy, a group that supports stronger child abuse laws.

The status of some investigations is unclear, frustrating activist groups. For example, in 2018, the California Attorney General’s office invited victims to come forward with their stories, and later issued subpoenas to several Catholic dioceses. The agency has not issued a public update on the investigation in years and has not responded to a request for comment.

The sheer numbers in the state reports published so far are staggering: 163 offenders in Missouri, 97 in Florida, 188 in Kansas. There have been long lists of credibly accused priests and others in the Catholic ministry, thousands of pages of victims’ accounts, and headlines about the findings. Attorneys General have been photographed carrying towering stacks of documents, hoisting doorstop publications that are the product of years of research and interviews.

The number of accused priests and incidents of abuse peaked between the mid-1960s and mid-1980s and has declined significantly since then, according to a 2011 study commissioned by Catholic bishops and conducted by researchers at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at New York City University.

In the early 2000s, bishops in the United States adopted new protocols to combat abuse, including a set of “zero-tolerance” policies. Historically, the church withheld information about priests who sexually assaulted them, often moving them from parish to parish without notifying those in the pews. The reports have prompted many dioceses to publish or update their own lists of credibly accused clergy.

Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, the Archbishop of Chicago, has challenged some aspects of the Illinois Attorney General’s report and questioned the way some data was presented. However, the archdiocese cooperated with the investigation, and Cardinal Cupich issued a statement apologizing “to all those who have been harmed by failure to prevent and adequately respond to clergy sexual abuse of children.”

In Maryland, Governor Wes Moore signed into law in April abolishing the state’s statute of limitations for victims of child sexual abuse to sue abusers, effective Oct. 1. He signed the bill into law less than a week after the state’s attorney general released a 436-page report documenting abuses in the Baltimore Archdiocese.

“The AG reports are a measure of accountability, even if they don’t have many teeth,” said Kathryn Robb, the executive director of CHILD USA advocacy, who helped write the new Maryland law. “They’re educating the public, and they’re educating legislators to understand: They’re having this ‘holy crap’ moment.”

Groups of survivors have urged the Justice Department to launch a federal investigation into the church. Other groups have tried to sue the church under federal and state racketeering laws, but those lawsuits have failed because of the high legal hurdles, including the need to prove “damage to property or property,” said Stephen Rubino, a lawyer representing the civil defense attorney. handling extortion in a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Camden in the early 1990s. (That case was settled; Mr. Rubino later tried another racketeering suit that was dismissed.) Many dioceses, facing waves of new civil suits, have filed for bankruptcy.

For Mr. Shapiro, now the governor of Pennsylvania, the report became a signature achievement of his tenure as attorney general. On the campaign trail, he said, people often pulled him aside to thank him for the report, sometimes identifying themselves as victims of specific priests named in it.

“From a Pennsylvania perspective, the most important thing is the way we’ve given a sense of justice to the victims here,” Mr. Shapiro said in an interview Wednesday.

Mike McDonnell, 54, says he was abused by two priests in the Philadelphia area from the age of 11. He then told no one what had happened to him. He started drinking as a preteen and later became addicted to drugs. His story was mentioned in a 2005 grand jury report on sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Mr McDonnell said he probably would never have faced the reality of the abuse had he not seen the men who abused him in the 2005 report. “If I knew myself I would have continued to numb myself and other compartments found in my soul to bury it,” he said.

At first, he said, he found it destabilizing to see his experience reflected in the report. He discovered that he was not alone and that the leaders of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia had known about the behavior of the two priests who abused him for years.

One of them, Francis Trauger, was convicted in 2020 of molesting two altar boys and received a prison sentence of 18 months to 36 months. Mr McDonnell, who now works for an advocacy group for victims of clergy sexual abuse, was in court for sentencing.

“It’s really monumental to see that in print and on the public record for those who haven’t had a vote,” said Mr McDonnell. “That validation really kick-starts someone’s healing journey.”