NEW YORK (NY)
BuzzFeed News
October 9, 2018
By Chris McDaniel
In the wake of a recent BuzzFeed News investigation that revealed widespread abuse of children at a Catholic orphanage in Vermont, the state’s attorney general convened a task force last month to investigate, pledging to stand up for the victims of abuse. But that office undertook a previous investigation into the abuse of Vermont children by Catholic clergy, in 2002, the results of which were never released.
Those confidential results — some of which have now been obtained by BuzzFeed News — provide dramatic evidence of how many secrets the diocese kept, and how willing state authorities were to keep them hidden.
Two months ago, a Pennsylvania grand jury concluded a two-year investigation by naming more than 300 priests who it said had abused more than 1,000 children. But back in 2002, the Vermont attorney general decided not to make the investigation’s findings public, even though prosecutors said they found probable cause to bring criminal charges against at least one priest. When the investigation concluded, the head of the criminal division informed the diocese that it did not “set out to investigate or determine whether” a priest “poses a current risk of harm to children” because that would be “outside our jurisdiction.”
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