Current and Former Clergy Members behind Push to Block Report on Clergy Sex Abuse

By Angela Couloumbis and Liz Navratil
The Inquirer
July 5, 2018

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/current-and-former-catholic-clergy-behind-push-to-block-state-report-on-clergy-sex-abuse-20180705.html

The office of Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, pictured above at the podium, conducted a nearly two-year investigation into allegations of clergy sexual abuse at nearly every Catholic diocese in the state. JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer

Harrisburg - Nearly two dozen current and former members of the clergy are among those seeking to block the release of a highly anticipated grand jury report outlining decades of alleged sexual abuse by clergy in Catholic dioceses across the state, according to a court document filed Thursday.

The revelation that clergy members are behind the fierce secret legal battle came in response to a push by the Inquirer and Daily News, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and seven other news organizations, which have together asked the state Supreme Court to lift its stay on the report’s release.

News organizations have called the report a “matter of extraordinary public importance.” The more than 800-page grand jury report, which was expected to have been released last month, details alleged clergy abuse in all of the state’s Catholic dioceses except for Philadelphia and Altoona-Johnstown, which already were the subject of similar investigations.

The documents filed Thursday offered a glimpse into the intense legal maneuvering that could result in the report’s being permanently shielded from the public. They also offered the most detail to date about the people who have fought for months to keep their names out of the public realm.