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Colorado investigators on Wednesday released a report on child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests, which chronicled the abuse of 166 children by 43 priests across the state since 1950, with most of the acts being committed by only five priests who abused 102 children.
But the investigation has been criticized by groups of victims. They called him toothless and blamed his reliance on voluntary participation by the Roman Catholic Church, which the report itself accused of a decades-long effort to hide potentially criminal activity from parishioners. and to the authorities.
The report says abuse cases peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, but investigators said that due to gaps in church record keeping and reporting practices, they couldn’t be sure. that the abuse would not continue today.
Perhaps the most pressing question asked about our work is this: Are there any priests in Colorado today who have been credibly accused of sexually abusing children? said the report. “The straightforward answer is only partially satisfactory: we don’t know of any, but we also know that we can’t be sure there aren’t.”
He said the files provided by the church “are not reliable proof of the absence of active abuse.”
The report is the result of an investigation commissioned by Phil Weiser, the Colorado attorney general, and led by Bob Troyer, a former U.S. attorney from Colorado. It came amid a cascade of similar revelations over the past year across the country, as prosecutors investigated past abuses and the dioceses themselves released information on the accused attackers.
“It’s unimaginable,” Weiser said at a press conference Wednesday. “The most painful part for me, we have had stories of victims coming forward – and they were not supported.”
Victim groups said they were frustrated with the investigation, which relied heavily on records provided by the state’s Catholic dioceses – Denver, Colorado Springs and Pueblo – under an agreement between the Church and investigators. Investigators in other states, including Texas and Pennsylvania, had used search warrants or subpoenas.
“That’s fine, but how do you make sure you have all the files?” Said Zach Hiner, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. “I appreciate that the GA leaves the door open for a real grand jury investigation, and I hope he will push for that authority now.”
The agreement also significantly limited the scope of the investigation, according to the report.
“It does not chronicle abuses committed by religious priests in Colorado or by diocesan priests prior to their ordination,” the report said. “He does not report sexual misconduct by the clergy with adults, including adult Church staff such as religious sisters or adult seminary students.”
The report states that there have been at least 100 occasions since 1950 where church officials have received reports of child sexual abuse that they may have reported to police, but have chosen to do it less than 10 times.
This was motivated by “a strong culture of reluctance” to report allegations that could damage the reputation of the church or another priest and was reinforced, until the 1980s, by the punishment inflicted on those who failed. reported child sexual abuse to authorities, according to the report.
A priest was convicted in 2007 of molesting a child and was removed from the priesthood in 2013, according to the report. But he said the statute of limitations meant there wasn’t much to do to prosecute other abusers now.
Unlike other states, Colorado investigators did not return any allegations of child sexual abuse to the district attorney’s office because most cases were too old and many accused abusers died. Four allegations were already known to prosecutors, he said.
In a statement, SNAP urged Colorado lawmakers to change these laws so that victims of abuse can seek justice.
Samuel J. Aquila, Archbishop of Denver, said in a video statement Wednesday that his archdiocese “will not hide from the past and must deal with historic sexual abuse of minors by its diocesan priests.”
“Thanks to the joint efforts of the attorney general and the church to have this matter investigated and published a report, several survivors have come forward for the first time and more are expected to come forward in the days to come,” he said. ‘archbishop. “If a survivor wishes to meet with me personally, my door is always open. “
The report contained disturbing descriptions of sexual violence and detailed a decades-long cover-up that included church records that euphemistically categorized sexual abuse as a series of “boyish troubles” or “boundary violations” caused by “the nervousness â€. He said Colorado church staff didn’t stop using these euphemisms until the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Although most of the abuse took place decades ago, the number of allegations reported each year increased steadily as adults began to talk about childhood trauma, according to the report.
AT at least nine children were reportedly abused in the 1980s and at least 11 in the 1990s. The most recent abuse allegation involved four children and a Denver priest in 1998.
The report says two cases of preparing a child for abuse or taking confidence-building measures that could be exploited later have been reported since 2000. The most recent was in 2011, according to the report.
Dioceses took an average of 19.5 years to take action against a priest after being informed of an allegation of sexual abuse, and more than half of the victims were assaulted by a priest after the church had already been informed of an allegation against him. Seven abusers suffered no repercussions in their lifetime, according to the report.
For survivors like Jeb Barrett, 80, who said he was sexually assaulted by a priest as a teenager, the report didn’t go far enough.
“Survivors and families affected by the abuse are going to be traumatized again,†said Barrett, who lives in Aurora. “It’s further victimization that the church won’t tell the whole truth. “
Elizabeth Dias contributed reporting.
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