21 Pa. Priests Suspended Over Sex Abuse Report

PHILADELPHIA — More than eight years after U.S. Roman Catholic bishops vowed swift action to keep potential abusers from young people, the Philadelphia archdiocese has suspended 21 priests named as child molestation suspects in a scathing grand jury report.

The suspensions came on Tuesday, the eve of Lent, the Christian period for penance leading up to Easter. The priests, whose names haven't been released, have been removed from ministry while their cases are reviewed, Cardinal Justin Rigali said.

"These have been difficult weeks since the release of the grand jury report," Rigali said in a statement. "Difficult most of all for victims of sexual abuse but also for all Catholics and for everyone in our community."

The two-year grand jury investigation into priest abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia resulted in charges against two priests, a former priest and a Catholic school teacher who are accused of raping boys. And in an unprecedented move in the United States, a former high-ranking church official was accused of transferring problem priests to new parishes without warning anyone of prior sex abuse complaints.

Since 2002, when the national abuse crisis erupted in the Archdiocese of Boston, American dioceses have barred hundreds of accused clergy members from public church work or removed them permanently from the priesthood. The allegations against the Pennsylvania priests stand out because they come years after the U.S. bishops reformed their national child protection policies.

The grand jury last month named 37 priests who remained in active ministry despite credible allegations of sexual abuse. After the release of the report, the second such investigation in the city in six years, Rigali vowed to take its calls for further reforms seriously.

Besides the 21 priests placed on leave Tuesday, three others named by the grand jury were suspended a week after the report's release in February. There were five other priests who would have been suspended: one who was already on leave, two who haven't been in active ministry and two who no longer are priests in the archdiocese but are now members of another religious order that wasn't identified.

The cardinal said the archdiocese "has notified the superiors of their religious orders and the bishops of the dioceses where they are residing."

The remaining eight priests of the 37 in the report were not being put on leave because the latest examination of their cases "found no further investigation is warranted," Rigali said.

"I know that for many people their trust in the church has been shaken," Rigali stated. "I pray that the efforts of the archdiocese to address these cases of concern and to re-evaluate our way of handling allegations will help rebuild that trust."

In 2005, a grand jury said that there was evidence of abuse by at least 63 priests and that church officials had transferred offenders to other parishes and dioceses. While the archdiocese then formed a panel to handle abuse complaints, the 2011 grand jury found it mostly worked to protect the church, not the victims. Rigali responded by retaining former city child-abuse prosecutor Gina Maisto Smith to re-examine complaints made against the active-duty priests that internal church investigators previously said they could not substantiate.

District Attorney Seth Williams called Rigali's actions "as commendable as they are unprecedented."

"We appreciate that the Archdiocese has acknowledged the value of the report and seen fit to take some of the steps called for by the grand jury," Williams said in a statement.

Peter Isely, of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said Rigali should have suspended the priests much sooner.

"There's a simple reason that dozens of credibly accused child molesters have recklessly been kept in unsuspecting parishes for years instead of being promptly suspended," he said. "It's because Rigali and his top aides want it that way."

He said Rigali and his aides want to protect "themselves, their secrets and their staff instead of their flock."