DoJ served subpoenas last week following report that found 301 ‘predator priests’ molested over 1,000 children in the state

The US justice department (DoJ) has opened an investigation of child sexual abuse inside the Roman Catholic church in Pennsylvania, it emerged on Thursday, using subpoenas to demand confidential files and testimony from church leaders, according to two people familiar with the investigation.

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The subpoenas, served last week, follow a scathing state grand jury report over the summer that found that 301 “predator priests” in Pennsylvania had molested more than 1,000 children over several decades and that church leaders had covered up for the offenders.

Now federal prosecutors are bringing the DoJ’s resources to bear, according to two people who were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

US attorney William McSwain of Philadelphia, who issued the subpoenas, wants to know if priests, bishops, seminarians or others committed any federal crimes.

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He demanded the bishops turn over any evidence that anyone in their ranks took children across state lines for illicit purposes; sent sexual images or messages via phone or computer; instructed anyone not to contact police; reassigned suspected predators; or used money or other assets as part of the scandal.

The grand jury subpoenas also seek documents stored in “secret archives”, “historical archives” or “confidential files”, and records related to the dioceses’ organizational charts, finances, insurance coverage, clergy assignments, treatment and other documents, according to the people who spoke to the Associated Press.

A representative for McSwain declined to comment, as did a justice department spokeswoman.

“It’s groundbreaking if we’re going to see one of the US attorneys pursuing the Catholic cases,” said Marci Hamilton, a University of Pennsylvania scholar and chief executive of Child USA, a non-profit thinktank focused on preventing child abuse. “The federal government has so far been utterly silent on the Catholic cases,” she added.

The 2018 grand jury report into all the dioceses in the state followed on the heels of a grand jury report into the Pennsylvania diocese of Altoona Johnstown in 2016, which described abuse committed and covered up over 40 years, including many egregious cases by leaders and one priest called a “monster” in the report. Many individuals had been molested and bullied for years by church leaders who were treated like demigods in their communities, investigators found, with many victims disbelieved or, eventually, quietly paid off, tearing families apart, while offender priests were often shuffled to other churches or even other countries, where they continued their predation. Many victims reported lifelong trauma, or even killed themselves, others kept their abuse secret while yet others have spent years fighting for justice.

Though local prosecutors generally handle child sex abuse cases, federal prosecutors can step in at times. McSwain’s predecessors have been aggressive in pursuing international “sex tourism” cases in recent years, once bringing teenage boys from the eastern European nation of Moldova to Philadelphia to testify, through translators, about an American businessman who preyed on them.

A law professor warned it was premature to assume a justice department investigation will necessarily reach higher up the church hierarchy than earlier investigations or end with more serious charges.

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“Because federal law enforcement is investigating something doesn’t always mean it is more serious or a bigger crime,” said Mary Graw Leary, who teaches at Catholic University’s law school. “Sometimes it just means there’s a federal question.”

Meanwhile, attorneys general of several other states are now also investigating abuse and cover-ups by Catholic priests and leaders, subpoenaing dioceses in states such as New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico and Nebraska.

The scandal blighted Pope Francis’s visit to Ireland last month and sparked a crisis in his leadership, while further weakening the Catholic church’s authority in the US and casting the deepest shadow over the institution since the Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigations team in 2002 uncovered widespread sexual abuse and cover-up by Catholic priests and their leaders in that region, which later inspired the Oscar-winning movie Spotlight.

Later on Thursday, three men and one woman filed a lawsuit against every diocese in Illinois for an alleged ongoing scheme to cover up sexual assault by priests, which affected the plaintiffs’ pasts.

The lawsuit was filed in Chicago by attorney Jeff Anderson, who has represented clergy abuse victims across the country, and seeks to compel all six dioceses throughout Illinois to provide the names of all their priests accused of child molestation.