Baltimore’s Catholic Church's massive sexual abuse of kids

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Maryland's top prosecutor accused Catholic Church officials in Baltimore on Wednesday of engaging in a yearslong cover-up of the sexual abuse of 600-plus children, some of whom were “preyed upon by multiple abusers over decades."

State Attorney General Anthony Brown chronicled the abuse in a 463-page report that named several priests and described what they are alleged to have done.

"Time and again, members of the Church’s hierarchy resolutely refused to acknowledge allegations of child sexual abuse for as long as possible," according to the report.

"When denial became impossible, Church leadership would remove abusers from the parish or school, sometimes with promises that they would have no further contact with children. Church documents reveal with disturbing clarity that the Archdiocese was more concerned with avoiding scandal and negative publicity than it was with protecting children."

In total, the state found, more than "600 children are known to have been abused by the 156 people included in this Report, but the number is likely far higher."

The report said certain parishes were bases of multiple abusers, such as St. Mark Parish in Catonsville, where, it said, 11 child abusers lived and worked from 1964 to 2004.

The sexual abuse was so pervasive that it wasn't uncommon for more than one adult to target a young victim, according to the report.

"Young people in some parishes were preyed upon by multiple abusers over decades, and clergy used the power and authority of the ministry to exploit the trust of the children and families in their charge," Brown found.

"Time and again, the Archdiocese chose to safeguard the institution and avoid scandal instead of protecting the children in its care."

The church didn’t appear to deny any of the findings in a lengthy response by Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori.

Lori called the report a "sad and painful reminder of the tremendous harm caused to innocent children and young people by some ministers of the Church."

"The detailed accounts of abuse are shocking and soul searing," he said. "It is difficult for most to imagine that such evil acts could have actually occurred. For victim-survivors everywhere, they know the hard truth: These evil acts did occur."

We found the groomers.

Over and over and over and over again. Was having this convo with a friend over messenger who is on team "drag queens are sexualizing and grooming children," and I pointed out that, no, it's priests. He said he wasn't pro priest blah blah blah but disagrees with what drag queens are "doing to children." I asked if he'd ever been to a drag show. He said he lived with a drag queen for a year. I asked a few times if he'd ever been to a show and he never answered. I told him it's like comedians - adult content at 19+ establishments, family friendly costumes and content elsewhere. He also kept going on about them being sexual deviants.. as if they're some sort of fetishized porn genre. Clearly he's never been to a drag show and has no concept that they're not pornographic.

Bet he doesn't expend 1/100th the energy talking about actual child predators, like churches/priests all over the world. Every time he brings it up I'm going to invite him to a drag show.