webRNS-Reese-Oped1-081518.jpg Members of the the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops ride an escalator during a break in sessions at the USCCB's annual fall meeting in Baltimore, on Nov. 13, 2017. (AP/Patrick Semansky)

Awful, disgusting, horrifying, sickening — one runs out of adjectives in describing the actions of abusive priests chronicled in the just-released Pennsylvania grand jury report. The report lists more than 300 priests accused of abuse in six of the state's eight dioceses. If accused priests from the other two dioceses, dealt with by earlier grand juries, are added, it amounts to about 8 percent of the 5,000 priests who served in Pennsylvania during the 70-year period covered by the report.

The abuse of even one child is terrible, but that more than 1,000 children were abused in that timespan is appalling. Undoubtedly, there are more who have not yet come forward, and hopefully this report will encourage them to do so. Just as disconcerting is the failure of many bishops in the early days of the crisis to respond appropriately to the abuse. The best you can say about them is that they should have known better. Why did they not do better? First, the bishops still lived in a clerical culture where priests looked out for one another as "brothers" in the priesthood. Like bad cops, they didn’t blow the whistle on each other. Some bishops didn't want to hear or look into the accusations. Clericalism blinded them to their responsibility to the children. Second, the bishops were told by their lawyers and insurance companies not to meet with the victims or their families. They heard the excuses of their priests but not the agonizing pain of the victims, a terrible failure. Every bishop should set aside at least a day a month to listen to any survivor who wants to meet with him. Third, at least as late as 1992, the bishops were told by psychologists that some priests were safe to return to ministry after treatment. It was not until 2002 that the bishops adopted a zero-tolerance policy for the United States, under which even one act of abuse permanently bans a man from ministry. In the late 1980s, according to the John Jay study of clerical abuse, the number of abuse cases began to decline because smart bishops started removing bad priests. It is noteworthy that only two of the 300-plus priests identified by the grand jury were involved in abuse in the last 10 years, and these had been reported by their dioceses. Fourth, the bishops initially kept the abuse secret because they did not want to scandalize the faithful. They also wanted to protect the dioceses’ assets from lawsuits.

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As a result, each victim thought they were unique, and even the bishops did not know the monumental scale of the problem until the flood of victims came forward after the exposé by The Boston Globe. Finally, in the early days of abuse, untrained priests were investigating and making recommendations on the handling of abusive priests. Only in 2002 did the bishops agree to have advisory boards that included lay people to review the accusations. Laity must be involved in the investigation and evaluation of any accusations. Lay people should also be involved in investigating the response of bishops. Indeed, they should be involved in evaluating candidates for ordination. No profession is good at judging its own. Explaining how this horror came to pass doesn't change the fact that the Pennsylvania grand jury report is another devastating blow to the U.S. Catholic Church. This is not to say everything in the 1,300-page report is uncontestable. Although false accusations are rare, they can happen. The report should be read with a critical eye like any other government report. One also needs to allow those attacked in the report a chance to respond. Among those is Cardinal Donald Wuerl, now the archbishop of Washington, D.C., who is criticized in the Pennsylvania report for his actions when he was bishop of Pittsburgh. We need to remember that in 1993, Wuerl tried to remove Anthony Cipolla, a Pittsburgh priest, from ministry but was told to return him to ministry by the cardinals on the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome, the church's supreme court. Wuerl refused. He appealed the decision, went to Rome and persuaded the Signatura to reverse itself. That does not sound like a bishop who was ignoring his responsibility to protect children.

webRNS-Wuerl-Abuse1-081418.jpg In this Oct. 1, 2017, file photo, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, shakes hands with churchgoers at St. Matthew’s Cathedral after the Red Mass in Washington. (AP/Jose Luis Magana)