Sign up for the Today newsletter
Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.
AG Campbell says decision on releasing report on clergy sex abuse is ‘in the courts’
During an appearance on Boston Public Radio, the attorney general asked for the public’s patience with the process.
Attorney General Andrea Campbell is asking for the public’s “patience” in waiting for the release of a years-old report on clergy sex abuse in the Worcester, Fall River, and Springfield dioceses.
During an appearance on Boston Public Radio on Tuesday, Campbell was pressed by hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan about why the report has not been published. It was completed in the fall of 2021 under then-Attorney General Maura Healey, according to New England Public Media.
“It’s in the courts to determine whether or not it can be released,” Campbell said. “That’s all I can say.”
Advertisement:
The report included numerous sources, she said, including grand jury proceedings.
“You’ve got to be careful with a grand jury, which typically, of course, is secretive, and there’s a special way in which these proceedings happen,” Campbell said. “In order to then get it out in the public view, you have to get permission if all parties don’t agree to release it. It’s currently in the courts.”
The timeframe for any release is up to the courts, she said.
“I take sexual abuse allegations — you know, I’m a mom of two boys — very seriously, by whoever,” the attorney general said. “In this particular case, I inherited a report that was completed, sitting there. And now I’m doing what I can to see what we can do in terms of releasing it. But that being said, it’s not up to me personally. It has to go through a process and that process now involves the court. And folks will know when it concludes where we end up.”
Advertisement:
Abuse survivors and advocates told New England Public Media last year that they were interviewed by the attorney general’s office in the fall of 2021 for a report on the dioceses in Worcester, Fall River, and Springfield.
In 2003, a report under then Attorney General Tom Reilly examined the widespread clergy sex abuse within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, concluding that more than 1,000 victims were likely affected in a 60-year period.
“It is essential to create an official public record of what occurred,” Reilly wrote in the introduction to the 2003 report. “The mistreatment of children was so massive and so prolonged that it borders on the unbelievable. This report will confirm to all who may read it, now and in the future, that this tragedy was real.”
On Boston Public Radio, Campbell would not deny or confirm when asked by Braude and Eagan if the three dioceses were the parties objecting to the latest report’s release.
“I don’t know if I can even say that,” she said.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com