Catholic Priests Abused At Least 166 Children Over The Decades, Reports Say

At least 166 children were abused by 43 priests in the state of Colorado since 1950, a report released by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said on Wednesday.

The 263-page report documents decades of abuse done by priests of the Roman Catholic Church. It was based on the investigation conducted by Bob Troyer, a former United States attorney for Colorado. The report reveals how it took one diocese nearly 20 years to remove a priest who was accused of abuse.

"This is a dark and painful history. The culture going back decades was one where there was a reluctance to acknowledge and address wrongdoing," Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser told reporters.

Troyer interviewed victims and witnesses, scourged through files of almost 500 priests and talked to law enforcement agents before filing the report.

The majority of the victims, 102 children, were abused by 5 priests. One of them, Father Harold Robert White, abused at least 63 children in 21 years, the report said.

When the scandal involving White threatened to blow over at a parish, the Denver Archdiocese moved him to a new one, where people were not aware of his actions.

Between 1960 to 1996 he served in six parishes before eventually being removed. White was named as the "most prolific known clergy child sex abuser in Colorado history" by the report. According to it, he was never investigated nor sent for psychiatric evaluation. White died in 2006.

The most recent cases in the report date back to 1998 which involved four children being abused by a Denver priest. The cases of abuse spiked during the 1960s and 1970s. The report also states that there is no way to ascertain that no abuses took place in recent years, blaming the archdiocese’s poor record keeping.

The investigation carried out by Troyer relied on the voluntary participation of the state’s Catholic diocese, depending on the documents provided by them. The fact that there were no search warrants and subpoenas issued made the victim’s organization criticize the investigation as toothless.

“That’s all well and good but how do you enforce that you got all the files?” Zach Hiner, the executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, told the New York Times.

The report itself states that the agreement between the diocese and the authorities limited the scope of the investigation.

“It does not chronicle abuse committed by religious-order priests in Colorado or by Diocesan priests before they were ordained. It does not report clergy sexual misconduct with adults, including adult Church personnel like religious sisters or adult seminary students,” the report said.

The church had received information about the child sex abuse on numerous occasions, however, they failed to act on it over the fear that it might harm the reputation of the church or a priest in the parish. The report also notes that punishment was meted out by the late 1980s to people who came forward with complaints of sexual abuse against the church.

In a video statement released on Wednesday, Samuel J. Aquila, the archbishop of Denver, apologized to the victims.

“I apologize for the pain and hurt that this abuse has caused. I am sorry about this horrible history -- but it is my promise to continue doing everything I can so it never happens again. My sincere hope is that this report provides some small measure of justice and healing," he said.

The victim’s organization is hoping that a true grand jury investigation will take place into these crimes committed.