Tom's first guest today is Del. Elizabeth Embry. Before she was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates last November, she served as Assistant MD Attorney General. She has spent the past four years investigating allegations of child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. A redacted version of her report was released last week. Click here to read it.
Its findings are stunning. 156 priests and other Archdiocese employees are identified as abusers, including 31 who had not been previously named publicly. The report chronicles 80 years of assaults on children and young people.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said this last Wednesday:
"Today, certainly in Maryland, is a day of reckoning and a day of accounting…
“The incontrovertible history uncovered by this investigation is one of pervasive, pernicious and persistent abuse by priests and other Archdiocese personnel. It’s also a history of repeated cover-up of that abuse by the Catholic Church hierarchy…”
"What was consistent throughout the stories was the absolute authority and power these abusive priests and the church leadership held over survivors, their families and their communities. The report seeks to document this long and sordid history..."
"While it may be too late for the survivors to see criminal justice served, we hope that exposing the archdiocese's transgressions to the fullest extent possible will bring some measure of accountability and perhaps encourage others to come forward."
— MD Attorney-General Anthony Brown
If you are a victim of abuse, and you would like to report past abuse by members of the clergy or anyone else, you can call the Attorney General's Office at 410-576-6312 or e-mail [email protected].
Del. Elizabeth Embry joins Tom in Studio A.
