THE REPORT: The Official Response

Everything pertaining to today's Grand Jury report and the responses of the archdiocese of Philadelphia has been posted here -- many of the documents are PDFs and will require Acrobat.

The executive summary of the report calls the cover-up allegations "outlandish" and states that:

Although the report does not indict a single person, it seeks to convict in the court of public opinion the Archdiocese, two Archbishops, various members of the Church hierarchy over the past fifty years and numerous other priests, religious and lay persons of participating in an evil conspiracy to hide the sexual abuse of minors.... [T]hese charges are mean-spirited and unfounded.

Elsewhere, the investigation was called "discriminatory," "lop-sided," "sensationalized," and "a sword used to attack the Church and build support for insidious pre-judgments." District Attorney Lynne Abraham was accused of "a public disservice."

William Sasso, chief counsel for the archdiocese (and a knight of St. Gregory the Great) called the report "extremely biased" and "anti-Catholic" at this afternoon's presser.

On the ground here, one word has been repeatedly used for the report: "Scathing."

-30-