DENVER (CO)
The New York Times

October 23, 2019

By Liam Stack

Investigators said 166 children were abused since 1950, but victims’ groups said the number could be higher. They criticized the inquiry as overly reliant on the voluntary participation of the Catholic Church.

Investigators in Colorado released a report on Wednesday on child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests that chronicled the abuse of 166 children at the hands of 43 priests across the state since 1950, with most of the acts committed by just five priests who abused 102 children.

But the investigation was criticized by victims’ groups. They called it toothless and faulted its reliance on the voluntary participation of the Roman Catholic Church, which the report itself accused of a decades-long effort to hide potentially criminal activity from parishioners and the authorities.

The report said that instances of abuse peaked in the 1960s and 1970s,…