Maryland’s top prosecutor on Wednesday accused Catholic officials in Baltimore of engaging in a years-long coverup of sexual abuse of at least 600 victims by more than 150 people over decades.
Attorney General Anthony Brown chronicled the alleged abuse in a 463-page report that named several priests and described their alleged wrongdoing.
The report, which took four years to complete, illustrated “depraved, systemic failure of the Archdiocese to protect the most vulnerable – the children it was charged to keep safe,” AG Brown said in statement.
“Based on hundreds of thousands of documents and untold stories from hundreds of survivors, it provides, for the first time in the history of this State, a public accounting of more than 60 years of abuse and cover-up,” he added. “Time and again, the Archdiocese chose to safeguard the institution and avoid scandal instead of protecting the children in its care.”
In a lengthy response by Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, the church did not appear to deny any of the AG’s findings.
Lori called the report a “sad and painful reminder of the tremendous harm caused to innocent children and young people by some ministers of the Church.”
“The detailed accounts of abuse are shocking and soul searing,” Lori said. “It is difficult for most to imagine that such evil acts could have actually occurred. For victim-survivors everywhere, they know the hard truth: These evil acts did occur.”
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Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
