A report released by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell's office on Wednesday found evidence that more than 270 Catholic clerics abused nearly 1,000 children across the Catholic Dioceses of Fall River, Springfield and Worcester.
"Behind every one of those numbers is a child whose safety was violated, a family that was changed forever and a survivor who carried the trauma of that abuse for years and, in many cases, decades," said Campbell during a press conference on Wednesday.
The investigation began in 2019 under former AG Maura Healey, but its release was delayed. In 2023, Campbell told GBH that she was working to make the report public at that time, but was unable to because of potential criminal charges.
"This was a criminal investigation, and a grand jury was a part of that investigative process. That matters because grand jury proceedings are protected by law," she said on Wednesday. "We spent the past several years carefully and deliberately making sure we could release the full findings of this investigation."
The state Attorney General's Office reviewed hundreds of thousands of pages of records and interviewed more than 100 people, including survivors, advocates, attorneys, clergy and diocesan officials and employees.
"We examined the abuse itself. We listened to survivors," said Campbell. "Their experiences helped us to deeply understand not only what happened, but the lasting consequences of that abuse and where institutions failed them."
After the exposure of sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of Boston in 2002, Massachusetts strengthened its laws governing child protection and reporting. The Catholic Dioceses of Fall River, Springfield and Worcester also created offices dedicated to child protection and victim assistance and adopted new procedures for reporting and investigating allegations.
However, diocesan leaders failed to respond adequately to allegations of child sexual abuse and warning signs, according to the report.
The investigation also determined that diocesan leaders transferred accused and offending priests to other parishes without disclosing the reasons for their transfers. The report found that these priests returned to ministry following treatment without adequate supervision, and diocesan leaders failed to meaningfully enforce restrictions; concealed the reasons priests were removed from ministry; and failed to consistently report allegations to law enforcement.
According to the report, sexual abuse allegations among these three Catholic dioceses date back at least 70 years.
"Those numbers are limited because they will never constitute the magnitude of the abuse," said Campbell. "So many records were either missing, not made available or we know survivors sometimes never come forward with their allegations because of the trauma they have suffered."
Why no prosecutions resulted
While the investigation uncovered a considerable amount of evidence of sexual abuse, Campbell said the law ultimately prevents them from prosecuting these crimes.
"Some of the conduct we identified was not a crime under Massachusetts law at the time the incident occurred," she said. "In other cases, the statute of limitations had already expired. When a statute of limitations has expired, a later change in the law does not allow prosecutors to go back and reopen those cases."
Campbell adds that three cases were referred to the appropriate District Attorney's Offices during the investigation, including in Worcester County where one case resulted in criminal charges.
"These legal limits do not change what the investigation found," she said. "They do not make the abuse less serious, and they certainly do not diminish the harm that was done to children and survivors."
Mitchell Garabedian, an attorney for survivors of clergy sexual abuse, said on a teleconference after Campbells press conference that criminal laws cannot be amended retroactively, but rather, amended prospectively so that survivors "who want to come forward in the future can fit within the criminal law."
"In murder cases in Massachusetts, there is no statute of limitations, and due process works fine in those cases," he said. "Due process will work fine in cases where there are no statute of limitations because the risk, the harm to the child is too great. I have lost six clients, six survivors to suicide during my representation."
Campbell also noted that the Catholic Diocese of Worcester is the only Catholic diocese in Massachusetts that doesn't have a public list of credibly accused clergy.
"They just refuse to. The change is going to come from the outside," said Garabedian. "The change is going to come from the statute of limitations being amended, advocates speaking up, sexual abuse survivors speaking up and lawyers filing lawsuits."
Dioceses react to the report
Raymond Delisle, chancellor and spokesperson for the Worcester diocese, said in a statement to GBH News that the diocese "welcome[s] the AG's report.
Delisle added that the Worcester diocese issued its own report in 2004 that was updated in recent years.
"Both reports point out that the vast majority of cases occurred 40-60 years ago," he wrote. "Our procedures over the past three decades, including the way we screen candidates for ordination, as well as the awareness and safety training which was implemented in all our parishes and ministries, have made an enormous difference."
Delisle also pointed to a section of the report where the diocese defends its decision to not release a list of credibly accused clergy.
"There is no other precedent for the publishing of lists of the accused in society - even of those accused in other positions of trust such as medicine, education or law enforcement," the report reads. "Such lists can be a cause for deep division among many members of our Church who see this as publicly branding as guilty those who never have been charged by law enforcement or had a chance to defend themselves in a court of law, given the fact that many decades have passed between the alleged abuse and the reporting of that abuse, or because they were already deceased when the allegation was first received."
Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha of the Fall River diocese said his office was just beginning to review the report today, said he is "deeply sorry" to all survivors of child sexual abuse and that "the healing of survivors and the enforcement of professional standards and policies to prevent any future occurrence of abuse have been and continues to be our top priorities."
Da Cunha enumerated several steps the Fall River dioceses has taken, including the publication five years ago of "a list of clergy against whom a credible allegation of abuse of a minor has been made, going back more than 70 years."
He also said the Fall River diocese has "fully cooperated" with the attorney general's investigation and did not object to the release of the grand jury report when it had the chance to.
Springfield Bishop William D. Byrne said that "prior to the report's release today, our diocese has been busy correcting our past failures, putting into place many new, trauma-informed policies and procedures," and that "we welcome the recommendations put forth by Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell."
"We will review these further recommendations and remain always open to best practices and avenues to further improvement. We hope that these recommendations do not end with the Catholic dioceses, but are also utilized as a measurement for all groups, schools and youth organizations," he said.
Next steps
Campbell called on the Catholic dioceses to put survivors first, properly report and investigate allegations, meaningfully enforce restrictions on accused and offending priests and to be transparent. But she said the government must also do more.
State Sen. Joan Lovely filed in a bill in 2024 that aims to eliminate the statute of limitations for civil and criminal child sexual abuse cases. The bill would allow survivors to seek damages at any time regardless of when the abuse happened.
But the bill has been stuck in the House for the past year.
"I do have the companion bill in the Senate, but the House bill is in a very active moment at the moment, so we're supporting that effort," said Lovely. "We share this responsibility to be able to get this to happen."
Lovely said she's also supporting State Rep. John J. Lawn Jr.'s efforts to put that same language into the Primary Care and Healthcare Affordability bill.
"It is our responsibility as leaders who hold the power to pass legislation that would allow for them [survivors] to truly get justice and accountability and allow folks who have come forward the opportunity to seek accountability," said Campbell. "Most importantly, it would incentivize more people to come forward if they know that we in leadership…hear them, value them."
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