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WARREN, Pa. -- A priest admitted to sexually molesting as many as 15 boys -- some as young as 7 years old -- shortly before he was assigned to a church in Warren, Pa.
In total, more than 1,000 children were molested by hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in six Pennsylvania diocese, while senior church officials took steps to cover it up, according to a landmark grand jury report released Tuesday.
Among those named was Thomas Smith, who served at St. Joseph’s church in Warren from Dec. 1, 1987, to Sept. 1, 1992. Smith was ordained in 1967 and served in several churches within the Erie Diocese.
According to the grand jury report released Tuesday, Bishop Michael Murphy was first made aware of a child sexual abuse claim against Smith in January 1984 from a 17-year-old boy. Smith was serving at St. Mary of the Assumption in Frenchville, Pa. The priest was placed on “health leave” from February to October of 1984.
“In reality, he was in residential psychological therapy,” the report states.
Smith was again placed on a leave of absence in December 1986 where he received therapy treatment. In January 1987, Diocesan records indicated that the treatment facility informed officials that Smith suffered from “driven, compulsive, and long-standing” obsessions with sexually assaulting children, the report said.
According to Diocesan records obtained by the grand jury report, Smith -- while in treatment -- admitted to sexually molesting and raping at least 15 boys. Smith said during treatment that all of his victims were boys, some as young as 7. The information was provided to church officials in Erie, Pa., in November 1987, the same month he was discharged from the facility.
A month later, Smith was assigned to the Warren church. However, just three months into his new assignment, Father Glenn Whitman wrote a letter to Smith to “advise him of recent conduct that placed him in violation of his aftercare agreement with St. Luke’s Institute.”
Despite the information, Smith stayed in Warren until 1992 when he was assigned to Holy Rosary in Erie.
The grand jury said it believes the “real number” of abused children might be “in the thousands” since some records were lost and victims were afraid to come forward. The report said more than 300 clergy committed the abuse over a period of decades.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said the two-year probe found a systematic cover-up by senior church officials in Pennsylvania and at the Vatican.
“The cover-up was sophisticated. And all the while, shockingly, church leadership kept records of the abuse and the cover-up. These documents, from the dioceses’ own ‘Secret Archives,’ formed the backbone of this investigation,” he said at a news conference in Harrisburg.
Significantly, the report faulted Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the former longtime bishop of Pittsburgh who now leads the Washington archdiocese, for what it said was his part in the concealment of clergy sexual abuse. Wuerl defended himself, releasing a statement Tuesday that said he had “acted with diligence, with concern for the victims and to prevent future acts of abuse.”
The grand jury scrutinized abuse allegations in dioceses that minister to more than half the state’s 3.2 million Catholics. Its report echoed the findings of many earlier church investigations around the country in its description of widespread sexual abuse by clergy and church officials’ concealment of it.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.