The attorney general of Maryland has a report on the sex abuse by Catholic priests

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office’s Investigative Study of a Child Sexual Abuse Case. Report of Victims and Witnesses

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office said more than 300 people contacted the office after it opened an email address and telephone hotline for people to report information about clergy abuse, and investigators interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses.

The investigation began last year and has received hundreds of thousands of documents, including treatment reports, personnel records, transfer reports and policies and procedures.

“The report is likely to evoke many emotions: anger, disgust, disillusionment and sadness among them,” Baltimore Archbishop William Lori said in a statement Monday ahead of its release. “Though the Archdiocese has made great strides over the last three decades to rid the Church of the scourge of abuse and to set the standard for how institutions should respond to allegations of child sexual abuse, the report covers a period in the Archdiocese’s past when our response to such allegations was woefully inadequate.”

The strong record of protection and transparency is no excuse for the past failings that lead to the lasting spiritual, psychological and emotional harm victims have had to endure.

Maryland’s Senate passed a bill in March that would repeal the state’s civil statute of limitations in certain civil actions relating to child sexual abuse. There is a bill in the House.

The report says some victims didn’t come forward until their parents had died to spare them the pain of knowing about the abuse, while others never intended to tell. The report said that other people repressed their memories and recollections of abuse many years later.

Archbishop Lori and the Baltimore Corrupt Courts: A Report that Revisited the Role of Church Crime in the Victims’ Legal Defense

“To all survivors, I offer my most earnest apology on behalf of the Archdiocese and pledge my continued solidarity and support for your healing. We know what you’re saying. We believe you and your courageous voices have made a difference,” Archbishop William E. Lori wrote in a statement Wednesday.

The Archdiocese started making changes in the 90s to end the problem. Since the 1960s and 1970s, instances of abuse have fallen every year and every decade, he wrote.

“Our judicial system should provide a means for victims who have suffered these harms to seek damages from the people and institutions responsible for them,” the report reads.

A Baltimore Circuit Court judge ruled last month that a redacted version of the 500-page document should be made public after lawyers for the state requested permission to release it. Officials recently started making the necessary redactions, which included removing the names and titles of 37 people accused of wrongdoing.

The redacted findings were made public Wednesday afternoon, marking a significant development in an ongoing legal battle over its release and adding to growing evidence from parishes across the country as numerous similar revelations have rocked the Catholic Church in recent years.

“The need for disclosure outweighs the need for secrecy,” Taylor wrote in his decision to release the report, saying a “public reckoning” may be the only form of justice available to some victims.

He also said Maryland legislators should be able to consider the report’s contents during the ongoing legislative session, which ends April 10. That timeline meant the report became public during Holy Week, which concludes Lent and is considered the most sacred time of year in Christianity ahead of Easter Sunday.

The Baltimore Archdiocese of Baltimore under Public Sexual Abuse Report in the 1980s: A Report by Keeler, Allen, and Taylor

Taylor instructed prosecutors to completely redact the identities of 37 people from the report before it was released. The attorney general was told to rephrase some pieces of the document in order to avoid identifying 60 other people. The court will consider releasing a more complete version in the future.

Many allegations of sexual abuse were reported to authorities by the archdiocese, however, it failed to conduct adequate investigations, remove abusers from the ministry, or restrict access to children.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore, the oldest Roman Catholic diocese in the country, has been under scrutiny over its handling of abuse allegations.

In Keeler’s case, the grand jury accused him of covering up sexual abuse allegations while serving as bishop of Harrisburg in the 1980s. John G.Allen was allowed to transfer to Baltimore and work again after he was defrocked. Not long after the report became public, church officials announced the archdiocese was changing its plans to name a new Catholic school after Keeler, who had died the previous year.

The priest who taught at the Catholic high school in Baltimore was the subject of abuse claims in the documentary. The remains of him were exhumed years ago while detectives investigated the disappearance of a nun from a Baltimore shopping center. She was teaching at the same high school as Maskell at the time of her slaying.