Current:Home > MyRevised report on Maryland church sex abuse leaves 5 church leaders’ names still redacted -Keystone Growth Academy
Revised report on Maryland church sex abuse leaves 5 church leaders’ names still redacted
View
Date:2025-04-15 08:59:39
BALTIMORE (AP) — Maryland’s attorney general released some previously redacted names in its staggering report on child sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore on Tuesday, but the names of five Catholic Church leaders remained redacted amid ongoing appeals, prompting criticism of the church by victims’ advocates.
While the names of the high-ranking church leaders already have been reported by local media, the Maryland director of Survivors of those Abused by Priests said he was disappointed, but not surprised that resistance continues against transparency and accountability.
“Once again, it just shows that the church is not doing what they say they’re doing,” said David Lorenz. “They’re just not. They’re not being open and transparent, and they should be, and they claim to be.”
Lorenz said he questioned whether the names in the report would ever be made public.
“I don’t have a ton of confidence, because the church is extremely powerful and extremely wealthy and they are paying for the lawyers for these officials,” Lorenz said. “We know that. They are paying the lawyers of the officials whose names are still being redacted.”
Christian Kendzierski, a spokesperson for the archdiocese, said the archdiocese has cooperated with the investigation, which began in 2019.
“At the same time, we believed that those named in the report had a right to be heard as a fundamental matter of fairness,” Kendzierski said. “In today’s culture where hasty and errant conclusions are sometimes quickly formed, the mere inclusion of one’s name in a report such as this can wrongly and forever equate anyone named — no matter how innocuously — with those who committed the evilest acts.”
The Maryland Attorney General’s Office said in a statement last month that the five officials whose names remain redacted “had extensive participation in the Archdiocese’s handling of abuser clergy and reports of child abuse.” The attorney general’s office noted a judge’s order that made further disclosures possible.
“The court’s order enables my office to continue to lift the veil of secrecy over decades of horrifying abuse suffered by the survivors,” Attorney General Anthony Brown said at the time.
The names of eight alleged abusers that had been redacted were publicized in a revised report released Tuesday.
Brown’s office said appeals are ongoing relating to further disclosure of redacted names and the agency could release an even less redacted version of the report later.
The names were initially redacted partly because they were obtained through grand jury proceedings, which are confidential under Maryland law without a judge’s order.
Those accused of perpetuating the coverup include Auxiliary Bishop W. Francis Malooly, according to The Baltimore Sun. Malooly later rose to become bishop of the Diocese of Wilmington, which covers all of Delaware and parts of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. He retired in 2021.
Another high-ranking official, Richard Woy, currently serves as pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in a suburb west of Baltimore. He received complaints about one of the report’s most infamous alleged abusers, Father Joseph Maskell, who was the subject of a 2017 Netflix series “The Keepers.”
In April, the attorney general first released its 456-page investigation with redactions that details 156 clergy, teachers, seminarians and deacons within the Archdiocese of Baltimore who allegedly assaulted more than 600 children going back to the 1940s. Many of them are now dead.
The release of the largely unredacted report comes just days before a new state law goes into effect Oct. 1, removing the statute of limitations on child sex abuse charges and allowing victims to sue their abusers decades after the fact.
veryGood! (534)
Related
- Angelina Jolie nearly fainted making Maria Callas movie: 'My body wasn’t strong enough'
- Federal appeals court temporarily delays new state-run court in Mississippi’s majority-Black capital
- Israel-Hamas war will go on for many more months, Netanyahu says
- NFL Week 17 winners, losers: Eagles could be in full-blown crisis mode
- Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie return for an 'Encore,' reminisce about 'The Simple Life'
- Finland and Sweden set this winter’s cold records as temperature plummets below minus 40
- Finland and Sweden set this winter’s cold records as temperature plummets below minus 40
- Ex-gang leader makes his bid in Las Vegas court for house arrest before trial in Tupac Shakur case
- Pressure on a veteran and senator shows what’s next for those who oppose Trump
- Shelling kills 21 in Russia's city of Belgorod, including 3 children, following Moscow's aerial attacks across Ukraine
Ranking
- Rylee Arnold Shares a Long
- Bangladesh court sentences Nobel laureate Yunus to 6 months in jail. He denies violating labor laws
- First chance to see meteors in 2024: How to view Quadrantids when meteor showers peak
- Christian McCaffrey won't play in 49ers' finale: Will he finish as NFL leader in yards, TDs?
- All That You Wanted to Know About She’s All That
- Why Sister Wives' Christine Brown Almost Went on Another Date the Day She Met David Woolley
- North Korea's Kim Jong Un orders military to thoroughly annihilate U.S. if provoked, state media say
- Who is Liberty? What to know about the Flames ahead of Fiesta Bowl matchup vs. Oregon
Recommendation
Travis Hunter, the 2
Remembering those lost on OceanGate's Titan submersible
Washington fights off Texas with wild Sugar Bowl ending, will face Michigan for title
Are stores open New Year's Day 2024? See hours for Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Macy's, more
Pressure on a veteran and senator shows what’s next for those who oppose Trump
NJ mayor says buses of migrants bound for NY are being dropped off at NJ train stations
16-year-old traveling alone on Frontier mistakenly boarded wrong flight to Puerto Rico
Raise a Glass to Ryan Seacrest's Sweet New Year's Shout-Out From Girlfriend Aubrey Paige