America was stunned this year when an investigation in Pennsylvania determined that some 300 priests had abused roughly 1,000 children over a 70-year period, as the church actively covered the abusers’ tracks. Those findings spawned similar investigations in other states, including Missouri and Illinois.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced her office’s findings last week, and it was, again, stunning. As the Post-Dispatch’s Nassim Benchaabane reported, Madigan’s investigators uncovered allegations of sexual abuse against at least 500 clergy that the church knew about but never made public.

In many cases, they found, the church declined to even investigate allegations. Some abuse survivors weren’t told that others had been victimized by the same clergy members. There were also instances in which church officials used details of the victims’ personal lives to discredit them.

In a statement, Madigan aptly laid out the scope of this betrayal, saying the church “has failed in its moral obligation to provide survivors, parishioners and the public a complete and accurate accounting of all sexually inappropriate behavior involving priests in Illinois.”

In Missouri, Hawley announced his office’s own investigation in August, shortly after the Pennsylvania report broke. Hawley — who heads to Washington in January — has faced criticism from victims’ advocates who say the attorney general has not pursued the investigation aggressively. Hawley has disputed that.

Part of the challenge with the Missouri investigation is that the attorney general’s office has no subpoena power over church entities here; that rests with local prosecutors. Hawley’s investigation from the outset has relied on voluntary cooperation from the church, an approach victims’ advocates don’t believe will work.

Schmitt, the current state treasurer whom Gov. Mike Parson appointed to fill Hawley’s vacancy, will inherit that problem along with the rest of the investigation. There are ways around it, including a coordinated effort to get local prosecutors involved in the probe. He also could seek the appointment of the attorney general’s office as a special prosecutor, which would give it subpoena power.

As Schmitt prepares to assume this investigation, he should explore those and other options available to make this an aggressive, full-fledged investigation like those conducted in Pennsylvania and, now, Illinois. Relying on the cooperation of a church hierarchy that was complicit in the coverup for generations is unacceptable.