“We, the members of this grand jury, need you to hear this,” begins the nearly 900-page report released Tuesday by a grand jury that spent two years investigating reports of sexual abuse in six Pennsylvania dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church over a period of 70 years.

The report, which says there were more than 1,000 identifiable victims and perhaps thousands more, is the broadest examination yet by a government agency in the United States of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Here are some excerpts.

A litany of disturbing cases

The grand jury members documented a wide variety of abuses by priests and others within the church, as well as creative ways of covering up or denying accusations. “Even of those odious stories, some stood out,” the report reads.