This Wednesday, April 5, American justice revealed that more than 150 members of the Catholic clergy are accused of “horrific and repeated” pedophile acts on at least 600 children, from the 1940s until 2002, in Maryland, in the northeast of the country. She also denounces the “complicity” of the Church.
According to a non-indictment prosecutor’s report, these archdiocesan priests and staff “carried out repeated horrific acts on the most vulnerable children in their community, while leaders of the Archdiocese closed their eyes”. This document, which concerns the Archdiocese of Baltimore, is the result of an investigation opened in 2018. It follows a shock investigation in Pennsylvania, and was carried out in parallel with other investigations in many other states.
In total, some 156 members of the Church are identified and suspected of pedophile acts. While the number of 600 victims has been announced, it is “undoubtedly much higher”, note the authorities, who recall that only a small proportion of rapes are reported. They also insist on the “complicity” of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which “refused to take into account the allegations of sexual violence against children”.
The Maryland Attorney’s Office relied on hundreds of thousands of documents, as well as testimony from victims and witnesses. The overwhelming majority of those implicated are named, but most of them are deceased and therefore cannot be prosecuted.
After the report was released, Archbishop William Lori offered his “deepest apologies” to the victims, admitting in a statement that these “diabolical acts (had) taken place”. He promised that this “damnable period” in the history of this archdiocese would be “neither concealed nor forgotten”. “Radical changes” have been decided since the late 1990s “to put an end to this scourge”, he said.
