BALTIMORE — A grand jury report revealing the devastating extent of child sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore and its efforts to cover up the problem became public Wednesday, four years after the start of an investigation survivors had long lobbied for and on the cusp of efforts to expand liability for abusers and the institutions that employed them.
Released more than four months after the Maryland Attorney General’s Office revealed it had finished its investigation, the public version of the report has been redacted and is not expected to identify diocesan officials who worked to cover up sexual abuse within their ranks.
Priests who abused children were often known to the diocese, yet little was done to stop them, according to the report. For example, Father Lawrence Brett admitted in 1964 to abusing a boy in Connecticut. Church officials there sent him to treatment in New Mexico, where he continued to abuse boys, and he then was transferred to Calvert Hall College High School in Baltimore, where Brett abused at least 20 more, the report states.
