An eight-member task force charged with reviewing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield’s response to allegations of sexual abuse by clergy issued its final report Wednesday, recommending changes to a process that survivors have said is sometimes worse than the abuse itself.

The Independent Task Force on the Response to Sexual Abuse spent more than a year and a half analyzing the diocese’s practices, interviewing clergy and collecting testimony from focus groups of abuse survivors.

The task force announced its recommendations at a press conference alongside Bishop William Byrne. The Springfield diocese serves Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin and Berkshire counties.

“The Task Force learned that a significant number of the ‘people in the pews’ are disillusioned by the diocese’s failure to communicate fully and accurately about the issue of clergy sexual abuse,” the report reads. “In fact, many survivors said that the experience of having to deal with the diocese was…