The Diocese of Burlington will cooperate fully with a joint state-local investigation into possible criminality stemming from the stories of abuse told by former residents of St. Joseph's Orphanage, Bishop Christopher Coyne said Sunday morning.

Coyne told parishioners during mass at St. Joseph's Cathedral and then reporters at a rare press conference, that the church erred in the past with its legalistic approach to allegations of abuse by clergy, and that both survivors and the faithful deserve a more compassionate response.

"As someone who loves the church, I’m filled with shame and sorrow," the bishop said not only of the abuse allegations in Burlington, but what he called "scandals" from all across the country, most recently in Pennsylvania.

"The only way we can get to the truth of these matters is to be cooperative," Coyne said, pledging the diocese would turn over any documents it discovered that hadn't already been turned over to the Attorney General's office.

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A intensive BuzzFeed News article, "The Ghosts of the Orphanage," published Aug. 27 brought back into the public eye survivors' stories of physical abuse and cruelty by nuns and clergy at the orphanage, which closed in 1974. In two-decade-old court depositions and in interviews, former orphanage residents have detailed beatings, children locked away in attics and even the death of a boy thrown from a fourth-floor orphanage window.

In the 1990s, the Burlington Free Press revealed many of those stories and followed the survivors' quest for justice in federal and state civil courts, where they were largely not successful.

On Friday, Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan, Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo and Mayor Miro Weinberger indicated a joint task force is being created to review what occurred at St. Joseph's all those years ago.

This will be the first criminal investigation into the acts allegedly committed by Burlington diocese officials at the orphanage.

"The believability of the allegations was a lot less" at that time, Coyne said Sunday. Survivors first came forward close to a decade before the Boston Globe "Spotlight" investigation unveiled not only the extent of sexual abuse by clergy but the scope of the Catholic Church's efforts to cover up those acts.

Coyne said he was a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston through some of those years.

"One of the largest mistakes we made was we let the lawyers drive the bus,” he told reporters Sunday at St. Joseph Cathedral. "Lawyers do what lawyers do, which is they try and protect their client."

“But that was not the pastoral thing to do,” he said. "The only way, the best way, to respond is as a pastor."

Of survivors of abuse he said, "people who are victims want us to believe their stories because they said for years we weren't believed. Now when someone comes I say to them, I believe you. I want to hear you. I'm not going to just dismiss you."

People want change, Coyne said about rebuilding community trust. "people want bishops to be just as accountable as priests are."

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Coyne said some records related to St. Joseph's Orphanage are not in the diocese's possession, but might be in the hands of the Sisters of Providence in Montreal. The order of nuns ran the orphanage from the late 1800s until 1974. The bishop said he'll be calling the Sisters of Providence to tell them of the looming investigation in Vermont.

"I don’t know where this is going to go," he said. "I just trust in God we’ll find the truth as much as possible."

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After Coyne spoke to his congregation about the investigation and his willingness to listen a with grey hair man wiped his eyes and bowed his head, the woman next to him reached for his hand.

'News to us'

State Attorney General Donovan said Friday he'd not been aware of what occurred at St. Joseph's, which operated on North Avenue and later became diocesan headquarters and for some years was home to the now-failed Burlington College.

"I've driven by that place thousands of times," said Donovan, a native Burlingtonian. "I went to Burlington High School a couple hundred yards away. This was a well-kept secret. I think we can say unequivocally that abuse occurred there."

The bishop's decision to speak publicly to parishioners and reporters came about quickly. When asked about the looming investigation on Friday, Diocese of Burlington spokeswoman Ellen Kane said, "This is news to us."

Coyne chose to address the new investigation ahead on Sunday, because he will be attending in Washington, D.C. an executive commuittee meeting of U.S. Catholic Bishops which had been previously scheduled.

Before 10 a.m. Mass the bishop in green vestments greeted parishioners inside the cathedral, most of them senior citizens with a sprinkling of working-age adults. New Americans clustered together in bright Sunday clothes in the back pews. A parent guided one child up the steps.

Pope Francis named Coyne bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington, which covers all of the state of Vermont, in 2014.

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'Don't Tell'

The bishop chose on Sunday to read a gospel story attributed to the Apostle Mark in which Jesus performs a miracle and then tells people not to tell anyone else. But the bishop did not address the implications in that story which might ring out to survivors: "don't tell."

"That was certainly a possibility, I knew we were going to talk about this after communion," Coyne said of the allegations. "So I felt that it was better for me to speak to the people words of faith rather than the scandal."

Coyne said he had spoken to the allegations in sermons in previous weeks. And he spoke of the need for a cultural change within the church, exemplified by his openness for a press conference.

But during the mass, leading up to a closing agricultural metaphor in his sermon, the bishop joked about his walking companion, a fellow bishop based in Fairbanks, Alaska.

“What did you do to have somebody send you to Fairbanks,” Coyne's said, repeating a joke the other bishops had used. A few parishioners chuckled.

"It’s a bad choice of words to use," Coyne said. "It’s a turn of humor amongst us."

When pressed about whether it was tasteful under the circumstances, the bishop conceded that he "should be more careful."

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Follow Nicole Higgins DeSmet on Twitter: @NicoleHDeSmet