The Catholic church's secret quest to quash clergy abuse investigation

Yahoo

07-03-2025

A slew of recently unsealed court documents by New Jersey's Supreme Court reveals the secret quest of the Catholic Church to quash the state's grand jury investigation of decades of clergy sexual abuse.
The court has scheduled a hearing next month which pits the state Attorney General's Office against the Catholic Diocese of Camden over the issue of whether the state can go forward with its grand jury investigation of clergy abuse.
After a 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report found that hundreds of Catholic priests had sexually abused at least 1,000 children, New Jersey's Attorney General launched its own investigation into clergy abuse in 2019.
For nearly seven years, New Jersey's clergy abuse victims and their advocates have been waiting for the state to issue a report. Many have grown frustrated by the apparent standstill and the Attorney General's office was tight lipped about its progress. Grand jury investigations are confidential and the state declined to reveal whether a grand jury had been convened.
Last month, The Record and NorthJersey.com revealed the reason for the delay after it discovered a once-sealed transcript of a court hearing which showed that the Camden Diocese successfully challenged the state's effort to conduct a grand jury investigation.
On Thursday, all of the court records revealing the secret battle were released by the judge. The court will also rule on whether the state can empanel a grand jury. If so, the state could move forward with its investigation and release a detailed report on clergy abusers and a coverup by the church. The hearing is scheduled for the court's April 28-29 session.
First Assistant Attorney General Lyndsay Ruotolo said that the commitment of the Attorney General's Clergy Abuse Task Force to the investigation "has never wavered.""For years, we have been seeking to convene a grand jury to present evidence collected by prosecutors across the state regarding decades of sexual abuse, the conditions that made that abuse possible, and the systematic failures to prevent it — and to allow the grand jury, as the conscience of our community, to make recommendations to ensure widespread abuse by clergy can never happen again," she said in a written statement.
Michael Walsh, Director of Communications for the Camden Diocese, did not respond to calls requesting comment. Lloyd Levenson, the attorney representing the diocese, also did not immediately respond.
The hundreds of pages of unsealed court filings open a window into a secret, yearslong battle by the Camden Diocese to bar New Jersey's Attorney General from investigating clergy abuse in the state.
In one of the unsealed briefs filed by the Camden Diocese, diocese lawyers challenged the state's authority to convene a special grand jury by arguing that state grand juries have no authority to issue a presentment relating to decades old allegations of abuse.
Unlike Pennsylvania, whose grand jury report inspired New Jersey's investigation, "the New Jersey Legislature has already effectively abolished the statutes of limitations for criminal and civil sexual abuse, obviating any need for a grand jury to recommend statutory changes."
Furthermore, the five Catholic Dioceses entered into "a Memorandum of Understanding in 2002 that established reporting procedures which effectively ended clergy abuse," the diocese attorneys wrote.
Superior Court Judge Peter Warshaw in Mercer County sided with Camden, saying that a grand jury presentment does not apply to religious organizations. In addition, he noted that a report by a special grand jury castigates an individual "without giving him the slightest opportunity to defend himself" and that many of the accused priests "were dead or of such advanced age that speaking up for oneself would be nearly impossible."
But the state urged the court to reconsider and reverse its decision, asserting that, "statewide sexual abuse by clergy, and the State's failure to prevent it, have had a tremendous impact on the public — and the full facts of how this widespread abuse went undetected and unaddressed have never been comprehensively resolved. A grand jury is empowered to investigate these harms, report on them, and offer recommendations to prevent their recurrence. There was no basis to foreclose an important, lawful presentment process that had not yet even begun."
The state also said that, "This dispute concerns one of the most wrenching public harms in recent memory: decades of sexual abuse of children by members of the clergy, and the conduct that allowed it to go undetected and unaddressed for so long."
Among the details revealed by the court documents is that even as a flurry of briefings were submitted to the trial court, more than 550 phone calls had come into the state's 24-hour Task Force hotline with callers "who alleged sexual, physical, verbal and mental abuse by clergy dating back to the 1940s and continuing to the recent past. The calls also detailed actions by Church officials to conceal misconduct, such as shuffling accused priests among parishes and promoting clergy who molested children," according to the state's brief. At least four clergy have been arrested. "I'm glad the Supreme Court saw fit to release this. It should never have been sealed," Clergy abuse advocate Mark Crawford said. "The victims were starting to give up hope about the truth ever coming out."
Ruotolo, from the Attorney General's office, said: "We were disappointed when the trial court prevented us from even bringing this evidence to a grand jury, and we are grateful that the New Jersey Supreme Court agreed to hear this case. Now that this case has been made public for the first time in this years-long dispute, victims and survivors will have an opportunity to make their voices heard — and to speak to the real harms that we have never lost sight of.'
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: How the Catholic church tried to quash investigation into clergy abuse