In one case being referred for prosecution, a priest is reported to have shared a bed on “numerous instances” with young children before the diocese placed him on leave in 2016, according to the report.

In another, a priest was allowed to return to ministry after a 2015 allegation of “detailed unwanted and inappropriate hugging and kissing of an elementary school aged child.” The priest apparently left the country this year, the report says.

About 80 of the accused men are now deceased, and 16 were previously referred for local prosecution. In Missouri, the attorney general does not have the authority to prosecute these cases directly and so must refer them to local prosecutors.

Before the report was released, all four Catholic dioceses conducted their own investigations and produced their own lists of priests credibly accused of sexually abusing minors, also totaling approximately 160 names. The attorney general’s office did not provide a breakdown of which names were original to its report.

Investigators heard from more than 100 victims and spoke directly with 45 victims or their families, according to Chris Nuelle, a spokesman for the attorney general. “We did have one priest who had 21 victims come forward, so we can assume the number is in the hundreds,” he said of the number of victims.