A grand jury investigation of Catholic Church sexual abuse in Pennsylvania lasted from 2016 to 2018, and investigated the history of clerical sexual abuse in six Pennsylvania dioceses.
This investigation focused on sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in six of the eight Pennsylvania dioceses – Allentown, Scranton, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Greensburg, and Erie. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia and Diocese of Altoona–Johnstown were not included, as they had been the subjects of earlier investigations.
The grand jury's report, released in August 2018, was the broadest examination by a government agency in the United States of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Legislative recommendations of the grand jury report were later signed into law by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf on November 26, 2019.
Grand jury investigation begins
Beginning in early 2016, sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in six Pennsylvania dioceses – Allentown, Scranton, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Greensburg, and Erie – were examined by a grand jury investigation, conducted by the office of Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro.
Each of these six dioceses is a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. A similar grand jury report which inspired this investigation had been released in 2016 detailing sex abuse in another Archdiocese of Philadelphia suffragan diocese in Altoona-Johnstown.
According to officials in the Diocese of Harrisburg, the diocese had intended to release a list of accused priests in September 2016, but were ordered by the Attorney General's Office not to do so, lest it compromise his investigation.
According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, in 2017 the Diocese of Harrisburg and the Diocese of Greensburg attempted to shut down the grand jury investigation.
On July 27, 2018, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered that a redacted copy of the grand jury report be released to the public. The list would name over 300 accused "predator priests"; two dozen others were allowed to keep their names off the list. The grand jury also charged two priests, John T. Sweeney of Greensburg and David Lee Poulson of Erie, as a result of the report, as their reported abuse was within the statute of limitations. Sweeney pleaded guilty on July 31, 2018 to molesting a 4th grade boy at some point between September 1991 and June 1992 was given a 11 1/2 month to 5-year prison sentence in December 2018, which he immediately began serving. Poulson plead guilty to two counts related to sexual abuse in October 2018 and began serving a 2 1/2 to 14-year jail sentence in January 2019. On March 15, 2019, Erie Bishop Lawrence T. Persico announced that Pope Francis had issued an order defrocking Poulson on March 5, 2019.
Bishops' actions prior to release of report
In April 2018, the Diocese of Erie published a list of 34 priests and 17 laypeople who had been "credibly accused" of sexually abusing children. By July, the list had grown to include 64 names.
On July 31, 2018, John T. Sweeney, a former priest in the Diocese of Greensburg, pleaded guilty to molesting a 4th grade boy at some point between September 1991 and June 1992. Immediately following Sweeney's plea, the Diocese of Greensburg made a statement pledging future cooperation. In the statement, which was reported by Crux on August 4, the Diocese of Greensburg agreed to continue educating “both children and adults in parishes and schools of the Diocese of Greensburg on how to spot and report suspected abuse.” The Diocese also agreed to recommend reporting incidents of sexual abuse to the PA ChildLine and report any alleged incident of sexual abuse to "PA Childline and the appropriate district attorney".
On August 1, 2018, the Diocese of Harrisburg released the names of 71 clergy members accused of engaging in sexual abuse of children. The list included priests, deacons, and seminarians of the diocese, as well as clergy from other dioceses or from religious orders who had served in the Diocese of Harrisburg. On this date, Bishop Ronald Gainer announced the name of every man who had served as a bishop in the Diocese of Harrisburg since 1947 would be removed from any building or room named in their honor, due to their failure to protect victims from abuse.
On August 1, 2018, Matt Kerr, spokesman for the Diocese of Allentown, announced that the Diocese would cooperate with a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling and publish a list containing names of clergy suspected of taking part in sexual abuse of children. Kerr stated that the Diocese would post the list of "credibly accused priests" on its website the day a grand jury report is released.
On August 5, 2018, Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik sent letters confirming the Diocese of Pittsburgh would cooperate with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court order and release the list of clergy accused of sex abuse when the grand jury report is made public. The letters were read during mass across the six-county diocese. In his letter, Bishop Zubik noted that the diocese implemented policies to deal with sexual abuse 30 years ago. Clergy, church employees, and volunteers are all required to go through sexual abuse training programs and criminal background checks. Zubik also noted that 90 percent of all the allegations in the report related to the diocese of Pittsburgh occurred before 1990.
On August 6, 2018, the Diocese of Scranton released a statement stating that Bishop Joseph Bambera would cooperate with the investigation and publish the list of "credibly accused clergy" when the grand jury report was published.
Grand jury report released
The grand jury report was published on August 14, 2018. It showed that 301 priests were accused of sexually abusing more than 1,000 children in the six dioceses and were routinely shuffled from parish to parish in order to avoid scrutiny. The report said there are "likely thousands more victims whose records were lost or who were too afraid to come forward." The majority of the victims were boys.
The New York Times called the report "the broadest examination yet by a government agency in the United States of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church."
The panel had examined a half-million pages of diocesan documents and interviewed dozens of witnesses. It found that bishops and diocesan leaders aimed to avoid bad publicity and financial liability. Hundreds of known offenders were returned to active ministry after being "laundered" in "treatment facilities".
Columnist Michael Sean Winters described the report as "spotty and inconsistent." Winters criticized the media response to the report and that it was weaponized by far-right groups such as Church Militant and LifeSiteNews in order to takedown Wuerl and attack Pope Francis.
Former New York Times reporter Peter Steinfels called the report "Grossly misleading, irresponsible, inaccurate, and unjust" noting that a third or more of the accusations were made know after the Dallas Charter and that such "inaccurate and incomplete" reports were used to push Wuerl out of office. Steinfels accused Shapiro of engineering the report in order to discredit church opposition.
Report's statements regarding abusers A total of 301 priests were accused of sexually abusing children: 99 from the Diocese of Pittsburgh, 59 from the Diocese of Scranton, 45 from the Diocese of Harrisburg, 41 from the Diocese of Erie (two of whose names were redacted), 37 from the Diocese of Allentown and 20 from the Diocese of Greensburg.
Of the more than 300 priests identified in the report, only two were involved in abuse since the year 2008, and both of these had been reported by their dioceses. If the figures from this report are combined with those from the Philadelphia and Altoona-Johnstown dioceses, the results show that about 8% of the 5,000 priests who served in Pennsylvania during the 70-year period covered by the report were credibly accused of abuse.
Among the incidents documented by the report were "a priest who raped a young girl in the hospital after she had her tonsils out; a victim tied up and whipped with leather straps by a priest; and another priest who was allowed to stay in ministry after impregnating a young girl and arranging for her to have an abortion."
The report also stated that some priests in the Diocese of Pittsburgh ran a child porn ring in the 1970s and 1980s and also "used whips, violence and sadism in raping their victims". The children who were sexually molested and had their pictures taken for the child porn ring were given gold crosses so they would be recognized by other abusive priests who sought to use them.
The Diocese of Greensburg had a priest who impregnated a 17-year-old girl. The report also revealed that the priest not only impregnated the minor, but also married her after forging a head pastor's name on a marriage certificate and then divorced her months later.
Former Erie priest and current bishop of Altoona-Johnstown Mark Bartchak was criticized for his handling of a 2005 investigation against former Erie priest William Presley. Bartchak was assigned by the Vatican during this time to investigate claims against Presley, who served in the Erie Diocese between 1963 and 1986, and continuously re-interviewed a male victim who previously disclosed his alleged abuse to the diocese in 1982, 1987 and 2002.
Presley was transferred to the Diocese of Harrisburg in 1986. On August 25, 2005, Bartchak sent a confidential memo to then-Erie Bishop Donald Walter Trautman. Parts of the memo read “I was not surprised to learn from other witnesses from the Elk County area, that there are likely to be other victims” and that "it is likely that there may be others who were also of the age for the offenses to be considered delicts, but to what end is it necessary to follow every lead?”
Bartchak also stated in another memo following a meeting with Trautman on August 29, 2005, "Bishop Trautman decided that in order to preclude further scandal, these additional witnesses should not be contacted, especially given the fact that it is not likely that they will lead to information concerning delicts involving minors under 16 years of age.”
Report's statements regarding bishops
The report named several bishops as having helped to protect abusive priests and cover up complaints.
Cardinal Donald Wuerl (formerly Archbishop of Washington), who was Bishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006, is named in the report over 200 times. It states that Wuerl allowed Father Ernest Paone to be transferred to another diocese, despite a history of accusations of child abuse dating back to the early 1960s. Wuerl also allowed another accused abuser, Father William O'Malley to return to active ministry in 1998, despite the fact that O'Malley was facing allegations of sexual abuse and had admitted that he was sexually interested in adolescents.
The report also noted that Wuerl had written to the Vatican to warn them about the problem of abusive priests in 1989. Moreover, after Wuerl removed accused child-abuser Father Anthony J. Cipolla from ministry, the Vatican countermanded this and insisted that Cipolla be returned to ministry; in response, Wuerl flew to Rome in 1993 and convinced the Vatican court to ban Cipolla from ministry.
Cardinal Donald Wuerl stated that while Bishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006, he had "established strong policies that addressed the needs of abuse survivors, removed priests from ministry and protected the most vulnerable in the community," as well as traveling to Rome to make sure an abusive priest was removed from ministry.
He also launched a website, "The Wuerl Record", containing a defense of his actions during that era, but after an outcry on social media, the website was taken down.