Another question I’ve been getting: Was the rate of abuse higher in the Catholic Church than in other institutions during the same time period? Really what people have asked is, why single out the Catholic Church?

My record is very clear. We handled the Penn State case and got convictions on all three senior-level officials, the president and the two vice presidents for covering up the Sandusky crimes. We just arrested a local police chief and a local deputy coroner and county prison guards for covering up sexual abuse, in some cases of minors, in other cases of adult women. We go after these kinds of cover-up and abuse wherever we find it.

Do you think the Catholic Church has made any progress in stopping child sexual abuse in the last 30 years?

The notion this is just something that happened a long time ago, and that we need to move on, is exactly the wrong response. Child rape is child rape, whether it happened in 1970 or it happens in 2018. There is no excuse for allowing it. And there is no excuse for covering it up.

Are you worried at all about alienating Catholic voters in Pennsylvania?

I never once thought about the politics of this. And frankly, to do this job effectively, you can’t think about the politics of any investigation. I’ve always believed, since my first time running for office, that good government is good politics.

More personally, you are Jewish. How has this investigation influenced your own spirituality?

My faith and my family are central to my life and ground me. We do celebrate the Sabbath each week together as a family. As a person of deep faith, I was deeply offended by the weaponization of faith that we found in the grand jury investigation.

I am in public service because Scripture teaches us that no one is required to complete the task, but neither are we free to refrain from it. Everyone has a responsibility to get off the sidelines, get in the game and do their part.