PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call
Steve Esack
Call Harrisburg Bureau
Pennsylvania Catholic diocese covered up decades worth of child abuse, grand jury report finds.
Two bishops who ran a Catholic diocese in western Pennsylvania systematically covered up decades worth of child abuse committed by priests and other religious leaders they supervised, according to a grand jury report released Tuesday by the state attorney general’s office.
The statewide grand jury investigation, which started in 2014 with a referral from the Cambria County District Attorney’s office, discovered the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown kept a secret archive detailing hundreds of abuse claims against 50 priests and other religious leaders since the mid-1960s, the attorney general says.
The archive stretched from the mid-1960s to 2011 and included Bishop James Hogan’s notes on the abuse claims and letters and other documents sent to Bishop Joseph Adamec. Both bishops also intervened to stop law enforcement investigations over the years, the grand jury report found.
But no criminal charges can be filed against anyone, Attorney General Kathleen Kane said at a news conference, because the statute of limitations has run out, abusers have died and victims are fearful of testifying in open court.
The grand jury report, Kane said, recommends the state Legislature lift the statute of limitations on when child abuse claims can be filed.
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