BALTIMORE (MD)
WBFF - Fox 45 [Baltimore MD]
August 22, 2023
By Chris Berinato
A ruling by a judge in Baltimore will allow a version of the Maryland Attorney General’s report detailing decades of sexual abuse in the Baltimore Archdiocese to be released with most of the names revealed.
The report can be released after September 26, according to the ruling.
“The court has already stated, but will state again, that the inclusion of a person’s name in the Report is not any sort of judicial determination that this person did anything wrong,” said Judge Robert Taylor in today’s ruling. “It is, rather, simply a finding that the secrecy that ordinarily attends grand jury proceedings should be set aside upon a showing of particularized need – a showing that has been made here.”
The 463-page report was originally released in April. The identities of 46 people were redacted because they were still living and had not been publicly identified by the Archdiocese.
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In the updated report, all but three names will be revealed. The identities of five senior church officials, ten accused abusers, and 31 other named but unaccused people will be revealed.
FOX45 News has reached out to the Archdiocese of Baltimore for comment.
David Lorenz, Director of the Maryland Chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said he is glad that most of the names will be revealed.
“This will help keep children safer, provide a sense of justice to survivors of the predators because they will know that they’re not alone and they can put the guilt where it belongs, and expose the wrongdoings of diocesan officials who are the most culpable in aiding and protecting these predators,” said Lorenz in an email.
Order and Memorandum August 2023 by Chris Berinato on Scribd
But Lorenz said he was “appalled” at a statement in the ruling saying that the decades of abuse happened because of choices made by individuals, not the Archdiocese.
“This is in direct contradiction with the findings of the AG report. For example on page 8 of the report states exactly the opposite: ‘The incontrovertible history uncovered by this investigation is one of pervasive and persistent abuse by priests and other Archdiocese personnel. It is also a history of repeated dismissal or cover up of that abuse by the Catholic Church hierarchy,'” said Lorenz. “It is clear from this excerpt and several others that the church had a policy of covering up for predators and protecting them over children.”
In the case of the five senior church officials, Judge Taylor said that revealing the names would increase transparency and accountability. “To continue to hide their identities does not advance that interest in public discourse; just the opposite. It allows the most negative possible inferences to be drawn, while continuing to shroud this troubling history in secrecy,” wrote Judge Taylor.
Judge Taylor detailed why the identities of each of the 10 accused abusers can be revealed. One of them is dead; one other accused abuser, if alive, would be more than 100 years old. Some of them have been named in other media reports.