Names of 11 Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse won't be made public, court says

By Monica Rhor
USA Today
December 4, 2018

https://bit.ly/2AUZs6W

In Baltimore on Nov. 13, 2018. Photo by Patrick Semansky

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, left, talks with Pope Francis after a Mass in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., Sept. 23, 2015. Pope Francis accepted Wuerl's resignation Oct. 12, 2018. Photo by David Goldman

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that the names of 11 priests accused of sexual abuse in a grand jury investigation will not be released.

In Monday's 6-1 decision, the high court said that making the names public would obstruct the right to protect their reputation, which is guaranteed under the state constitution.

A group of former and current priests had argued that they were denied due process because they didn’t have enough time to defend themselves against a grand jury report that came out earlier this year.

The report, which concluded that hundreds of priests had abused children going back more than 70 years, was released with the names of those priests temporarily redacted.

An attorney representing several of the priests called the court's decision "a victory for all Pennsylvanians,” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

"There is no vindication in a wrongful accusation," Danilewitz said, "so we think that victims can take comfort in … that their voices were heard, but not at the expense of innocent individuals."

The names of more than 270 priests accused of sexually abusing more than 1,000 children were made public when the grand jury report was issued in August. The abuse, which church officials covered up, took place in six of Pennsylvania’s eight dioceses, the grand jury found.

"We acknowledge that this outcome may be unsatisfying to the public and to the victims of the abuse detailed in the report," Justice Debra Todd wrote. "While we understand and empathize with these perspectives, constitutional rights are of the highest order, and even alleged sexual abusers, or those abetting them, are guaranteed by our commonwealth's constitution the rights of due process."

State Attorney General Josh Shapiro urged the state’s Catholic bishops to release the names of the accused priests.

“Today’s order allows predator priests to remain in the shadows and permits the church to continue concealing their identities,” Shapiro said. "The public will not relent in its demand that anyone involved in this widespread abuse and cover up be named."

The grand jury report of more than 1,000 pages detailed abuse in the dioceses of Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton, which included child rapes and a 1970s pedophile and child pornography ring in Pittsburgh.

“We believe that the real number– of children whose records were lost, or who were afraid ever to come forward– is in the thousands," it says. “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all.”

In a statement to CNN, a spokesman for the Diocese of Harrisburg said the diocese had “released a thorough and complete list of clergy and seminarians with accusations of child sexual abuse before the release of the Attorney General's Report."

The Diocese of Allentown told CNN it had not tried to delay or block the grand jury report.