PENNSYLVANIA
Philly.com

by Caitlin McCabe and Maria Panaritis, STAFF WRITERS.

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – In January, a deputy attorney general and two agents walked into a judge’s chambers here with questions. They wanted to discuss a meeting decades earlier that had ended with a “monster” priest being allowed to go free.

This undated photo shows Bishop James Hogan, right, and Pope John Paul II in Rome. Hogan and Joseph Adamec, two Roman Catholic bishops who led a Pennsylvania diocese, helped cover up the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by over 50 priests or religious leaders over a 40-year period.

Back in 1985, Cambria County Judge Patrick T. Kiniry had been a local prosecutor, and met with Bishop James Hogan to discuss a priest suspected of sexually abusing children. As leader of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, the bishop had outsize influence in the area. Kiniry, a former altar boy, had been…