Over 1,000 child abuse cases covered up by Catholic Church, grand jury report reveals

A grand jury report has revealed that more than 1,000 children – and possibly many more – were molested by hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in six dioceses in the US state of Pennsylvania.

According to the report released on Tuesday which details decades of abuse by hundreds of accused priests in the state, senior church officials also took steps to cover up the abuse cases.

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Commenting on the matter, Attorney General Josh Shapiro said the two-year probe found a systematic cover-up by senior church officials in Pennsylvania and at the Vatican.

“The cover-up was sophisticated. And all the while, shockingly, church leadership kept records of the abuse and the cover-up. These documents, from the dioceses’ own ‘Secret Archives,’ formed the backbone of this investigation,” he said at a news conference in the city of Harrisburg.

The report said more than 300 clergy committed the abuse over a period decades, beginning in the mid-1950s.

 

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