Child & Youth Protection

Murphy said there is a “simple” answer as to how the church found itself enmeshed in the abuse crisis. “It’s because church leadership put power, prestige and possessions above the lives of the children entrusted to their care,” she said.

“(I)t is accurate to say that the abuse that we discovered and uncovered pre-dates the current leadership in the Archdiocese and they are offenses that occurred in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and through the ’80s, some maybe as recently as the ’90s,” Brown said.

Archbishop Lori said that as he read the report, “just as a pastor of souls and as a Catholic, I felt deep sadness. I felt shame. I felt sickened by the report, and I had to ask myself how could this have happened in the life of the church and how could it have gone on so long?”

In a pastoral letter in response to the release of a redacted version of the Maryland Attorney General’s report “Clergy Abuse in Maryland: Report on the Investigation of the Archdiocese of Baltimore,” Archbishop William E. Lori said it serves “as a heartbreaking and new reminder of a tragic and shameful time.”