Local News
Attorney General Andrea Campbell is asking the general public for “patience” as she waits for the discharge of a years-old report into clergy sexual abuse within the dioceses of Worcester, Fall River and Springfield.
During an appearance on Boston Public Radio On Tuesday, Campbell was pressed by anchors Jim Braude and Margery Eagan about why the report wasn't released. It was accomplished in fall 2021 under then-Attorney General Maura Healey, in line with New England Public Media.
“It’s up to the courts to decide whether it can be released or not,” Campbell said. “That’s all I can say.”
The report included quite a few sources, including grand jury proceedings.
“You have to be careful with a grand jury, which is normally secret, of course, and there is a particular way that these proceedings are run,” Campbell said. “Then to make it public you have to get permission if not all parties agree to release it. It’s currently before the courts.”
The timeframe for release is as much as the courts, she said.
“I take allegations of sexual abuse – you know, I'm a mother of two boys – very seriously, from whomever,” the attorney general said. “In this particular case, I inherited a completed report that was sitting there. And now I'm doing what I can to see what we can do in terms of publishing. But other than that, it's not my fault personally. It has to go through a process, and that process now involves the court. And when it’s over, people will know where we end up.”
Abuse survivors and advocates said New England Public Media Last 12 months they announced they were being interviewed by the attorney general's office in fall 2021 for a report on the dioceses of Worcester, Fall River and Springfield.
In 2003, a report by then-Attorney General Tom Reilly examined widespread clergy sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. finally that probably greater than 1,000 victims were affected over a period of 60 years.
“It is important to create an official public record of events,” Reilly wrote within the introduction to Report 2003. “The abuse of children was so massive and so prolonged that it bordered on the unbelievable. This report will confirm to all who read it now and in the future that this tragedy was real.”
On Boston Public Radio, Campbell wouldn’t deny or confirm Braude and Eagan's query about whether the three dioceses were the parties that objected to the discharge of the newest report.
“I don’t know if I can even say that,” she said.
image credit : www.boston.com