CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

August 16, 2018

By Michael Sneed

It’s a moral catastrophe.

“I wasn’t shocked. Not at all,” said Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, a devout Catholic and mother of five responding to a Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing the sexual abuse of 1,000 young people at the hands of hundreds of Catholic priests.

“I think every state should convene a grand jury into this culture of secrecy that protected offenders at all costs,” said Burke, who was once interim chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops study on nationwide clerical sexual abuse in 2002.

“It was happening in Chicago, but we had to rely on files the bishops were willing to give us — and we knew there had to be more, but we had no subpoena powers,” said Burke. “We had no government authority!”

“We did a lot of research, but a lot…