Catholic church is stonewalling sex abuse investigation, Washington attorney general says

SEATTLE -- The Catholic religion is refusing to cooperate with a Washington authorities probe into whether it unlawfully utilized charitable spot funds to screen up intersexual maltreatment by priests, Attorney General Bob Ferguson said Thursday, asking a tribunal to unit the Seattle Archdiocese to crook implicit decades of records.

The archdiocese called the allegations a surprise, saying successful a connection that it welcomed the probe and has been collaborating since receiving a subpoena past July. The archdiocese shares the state's goals — “preventing maltreatment and helping unfortunate survivors connected their way to healing and peace," it said.

“We person a bully knowing of the contented of our files and we person nary interest astir sharing them with the Attorney General lawfully and fairly,” the connection said.

Ferguson, a Catholic himself, told a quality league that the archdiocese has refused to supply adjacent a azygous papers that had not already been made public, claiming an exemption arsenic a spiritual institution. The archdiocese disputed that arsenic well, saying it offered this week to supply backstage deposition documents, but that the lawyer general's bureau said it wasn't interested.

Ferguson said the archdiocese ignored a 2nd subpoena issued this outpouring seeking records connected however the religion handled allegations of enactment abuse, including fiscal records related to however it whitethorn person spent charitable spot wealth moving priests from parish to parish aft they were accused of enactment abuse.

“The religion has much accusation than it has shared with the public,” Ferguson said. “We judge the nationalist is entitled to spot those records."

Some 23 states person conducted investigations of the Catholic church, and truthful acold astatine slightest 9 person issued reports detailing their findings. In immoderate cases, those findings person gone acold beyond what religion officials had voluntarily disclosed.

For example, the six Catholic dioceses successful Illinois had reported publically that determination had been 103 clerics and spiritual brothers credibly accused of kid enactment abuse. But successful a scathing study past year, the Illinois lawyer general's bureau said it had uncovered elaborate accusation connected 451 who had sexually abused astatine slightest 1,997 children.

Similarly, Maryland past twelvemonth reported staggering grounds of conscionable however wide the maltreatment was: More than 150 Catholic priests and others associated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore sexually abused implicit 600 children and often escaped accountability. In 2018, a Pennsylvania expansive assemblage recovered that much than 300 Catholic clerics had abused much than 1,000 children successful that authorities implicit the anterior 70 years.

The Seattle Archdiocese has published a database of 83 clerics it says were credibly accused, and it says that opening successful the 1980s it was 1 of the archetypal successful the federation to statesman adopting policies to code and forestall intersexual maltreatment by priests. Sexual maltreatment by religion unit peaked successful 1975, and determination person been nary reports since 2007, the archdiocese said.

But contempt decades of lawsuits by survivors of clerical enactment abuse, the grade of the ungraded successful Washington authorities remains unknown, Ferguson said, due to the fact that the religion has not released its files oregon explained wherefore it recovered allegations against different priests little than credible.

Accusers, who person agelong demanded that the religion unfastened its books, welcomed Ferguson's announcement and said they regretted its necessity. Transparency is indispensable for the religion to heal, said Terry Carroll, a subordinate of the steering committee astatine Heal Our Church, a Catholic religion betterment enactment successful Washington.

“We telephone connected the religion and its ineligible representatives to cooperate afloat with the probe by granting afloat entree to each applicable records, including interior chancellery memos, attorneys correspondence and fiscal information,” Carroll said during the quality league Thursday. "Church members and survivors merit nary less.”

Ferguson's probe is civil, not criminal, and focuses connected the 3 dioceses successful Washington — Seattle, Spokane and Yakima. He said the Spokane and Yakima dioceses person refused to supply documents, but the lawyer general's bureau is not yet seeking tribunal orders to unit them to comply.