Years before one priest went to prison for child sex abuse, he confessed his attraction to teenage boys. Church leaders told him not to “worry about it.”
The church paid tuition, salary and living expenses for another priest even after he confessed to abusing boys. And church leaders waited years to tell authorities that yet another priest had been sexually abusing children.
These instances of child sex abuse are documented in court records filed Thursday by the Office of the Maryland Attorney General. Investigators told the courts they uncovered a history of “pervasive” sexual abuse by the priesthood of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, as well as a coverup and “complicit silence” by church leaders.
The attorney general’s office identified 158 priests, most of them already known, within the archdiocese accused of the “sexual abuse” and “physical torture” of more than 600 victims over the past 80 years, according to the court records. Investigators told the court there are likely hundreds more victims.
“Both boys and girls were abused, with ages ranging from preschool through young adulthood,” Assistant Attorney General Carrie Williams wrote the court. “Although no parish was safe, some congregations and schools were assigned multiple abusive priests and a few had more than one sexually abusive priest at the same time.”
Catholicism, organized crime since it began.