Following investigative news stories that lifted the veil of secrecy from a Maryland Attorney General’s report on clergy child sex abuse, survivors gathered Monday outside the Archdiocese of Baltimore offices to demand that five church officials be removed from the ministry and seven other priests be named.
David Lorenz and other members of Maryland’s chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests also called on Baltimore Archbishop William Lori to resign, but acknowledged that is unlikely to happen unless parishioners pressure the church for more accountability.
The group held the news conference in response to articles published last week in The Baltimore Sun and The Baltimore Banner that identified church officials and accused priests whose names were redacted from the attorney general’s report on child sex abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.
The 456-page grand jury report was released last month and details decades of abuse and cover-ups within the Catholic Church. The report identifies 158 priests, most of them already known, within the archdiocese accused of the “sexual abuse” and “physical torture” of more than 600 victims over the past 80 years.
Redacted from the report are the names of five church officials who handled the allegations of abuse, as well as 10 clergy members who are presumed alive and not widely known to have been accused. Their names were redacted for procedural reasons; the investigation was conducted through a grand jury, which is confidential under state law.
At the press conference, Lorenz read out the names of three abusers and five officials whose names have been unmasked. The Rev. Samuel Lupico, the Rev. Joseph O’Meara and the Rev. John Peter Krzyanski are the three priests whose names were made public in a Banner story. “They are all still at large. They are out there. And now that we know those names, children are no longer in harm’s way — in as much harm’s way,” Lorenz said.
But seven priests’ names still remain redacted, and the survivors called for the archdiocese to make those names known.
“They could be out there at schools or placed next to schools or playgrounds, and no one is any the wiser that these are abusive people,” he said. “They are capable of releasing those names. They could have released those names years ago.”
The story continues at The Baltimore Banner: ‘They are all still at large’: Clergy abuse survivors call for suspensions, release of names after investigative articles
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