WASHINGTON
Bellingham Herald

BY CALEB HUTTON
chutton@bhamherald.com

The Archdiocese of Seattle released the names of 77 sex abusers who served as priests and religious leaders of the Catholic Church in Western Washington over the past century.

The church disclosed the names as part of the Archdiocese’s “longstanding efforts at transparency, accountability and urging victims to come forward,” according to a media release Friday, Jan. 15.

All of the listed priests and religious brothers and sisters have been linked to credible reports of child sex abuse between 1923 and 2008, according to the church. Five of the priests have ties to Whatcom County:

▪ Michael Cody, now deceased, worked at Sacred Heart Church in La Conner from 1970 to 1972, St. Charles Catholic Church in Burlington from 1972 to 1975, and the Church of the Assumption in Bellingham from 1972 to 1975. His sexual abuse of a Sedro-Woolley…