PITTSBURGH (PA)
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
August 19, 2018
By Tim Morris
More than 30 years after horrific crimes against children in the Louisiana Diocese of Lafayette first exposed a culture of sexual abuse and systematic cover-up within the Catholic Church, the tragedy continues.
The latest evidence comes in a scathing report issued Tuesday (Aug. 14) by a Pennsylvania grand jury that found bishops and other leaders of the church had concealed sexual abuse of children by more than 300 priests over a period of 70 years.
The grand jury said there were more than 1,000 identifiable victims and likely thousands more whose records were lost or who were too afraid to come forward.
Heartbreaking examples in the 1,400-page report included a priest who raped a young girl in a hospital visit after she had her tonsils out; another priest who was allowed to stay in ministry after impregnating a young girl and arranging for her to have an abortion; a 7-year-old boy who was sexually abused by a priest and then told to go and confess his “sins” — to that same priest; another priest who forced a 9-year-old boy to perform oral sex, “then rinsed out the boy’s mouth with holy water to purify him.”
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