The horrifying report of sexual harassment in the US
The report on sexual harassment in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, one of the oldest Roman Catholic churches in the country, released yesterday by the Maryland State Attorney General’s Office, is still under discussion.
The report, released in a week considered holy by Christians before Easter Sunday, claimed that 156 priests from Catholic churches and schools in the Archdiocese of Baltimore sexually abused and physically tortured more than 600 people in the last 80 years.
“The shocking prevalence of abuse underscores the culpability of the church hierarchy,” said the report on child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, as part of ongoing investigations since 2019. The expression was used.
“The sheer number of abusers and victims, the immoral behavior of abusers, and the frequency with which known abusers are given the opportunity to continue abusing children is staggering,” the report says. a comment has been made.
The report, which argued that church leaders focused on covering up abuse, not protecting victims or stopping the abuse, noted that in some cases, victims reported abuse to already abusive priests.
Rather than fire the accused clergy or report them to law enforcement, church leaders have allowed them to retire or relocate with protective financial support, according to the report.
Examples given in the 456-page report, parts of which were redacted and published with court permission, include St. Mark’s parish church included details that 11 abusers served between 1964 and 2004, and that a co-pastor He confessed to sexually abusing more than 100 children.
“THIS IS OUR LIFE PURPOSE”
Harassment victims, on the other hand, told the press that the report was a long overdue public account of shameful events at churches.
Jean Hargadon Wehner, who claimed she was repeatedly raped by Catholic High School pastor A. Joseph Maskell as a child in Baltimore in the early 1990s, said: “I reported the abuse to church authorities, I expected that they did the right thing in 1992. I’m still angry.” He shared his statements.
The report stated that Maskell sexually abused at least 39 children, denied the allegations before he died in 2001, and did not face any criminal charges.
Another abuse victim, Kurt Rupprecth, stated that he has suffered from mental health issues in the form of trauma, anger and disbelief for years due to the abuse he was subjected to, adding: “We are here to tell the truth and we will. never be silent We deal with this every day. This is our life sentence.” he said.
ABUSE IN CHURCHES AND COMPLAINT
Especially in the early 2000s, news of sexual harassment in the Archdiocese of Boston and incidents of abuse in churches that were on the nation’s agenda sparked criticism and investigations against Catholic churches across the country.
The Maryland Attorney General’s Office asked the court in February to release the report titled “Clergy Abuse in Maryland,” which it has produced as part of its investigation since 2019, as most of the documents were obtained through the large jury, and the Baltimore City Court had decided the day before that parts of the report could be cut out and published.
“Today is definitely a day of reckoning in Maryland,” Maryland State Attorney General Anthony Brown said yesterday at a news conference for the release of the report. he has spoken.
Brown noted that since the start of the investigation, more than 300 people have contacted them, hundreds of people have been interviewed for the report, and more than 100,000 documents dating back to the 1940s have been examined.
The Archbishop of Baltimore, William Lori, also apologized in a written statement after the publication of the report, accepting the veracity of the abuses in the churches, pledging to support improvements on this issue and defending that they introduced a series of new regulations to prevent the bullying in churches
Open sources on the internet say the Archdiocese of Baltimore has paid more than $13.2 million in compensation to 301 victims of harassment since the 1980s. (BRITISH AUTOMOBILE CLUB)