National Catholic Reporter

In a 2018 grand jury report on the cover-up of child sex abuse by Catholic clergy in Pennsylvania, more than 300 priests and bishops were accused of committing or ignoring a litany of abuses, including pedophilia, sodomy, rape and sadomasochistic acts. Named in the report were three Scranton bishops, including my great uncle.

“Priests were raping little boys and girls,” the report stated, “and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing: they hid it all.”

The cover-up was described as one of the worst scandals in church history.

“They knew exactly how it was handled,” attorney Marci Hamilton, founder and CEO of child advocacy nonprofit CHILD USA, told me. “They thought they were not accountable to the law.” (Hamilton had consulted on a similar 2005 report in Philadelphia.)