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Following the nation's longest-running grand jury probe into priest abuse, the scathing report documents assaults on minors by more than 60 priests since 1967, and alleges that former archbishops Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua and Cardinal John Krol covered up the abuse.
Two of those priests included in the inquiry, who had committed abuses, have ties to Chester County. Another former high-level archdiocese official with local ties was also documented as helping to keep abuses under the public radar.
"To protect themselves from negative publicity or expensive lawsuits - while keeping abusive priests active - the cardinals and their aides hid the priests' crimes from parishioners, police and the general public," the report stated.
Cardinal Justin Rigali issued a response to the report Wednesday, saying the church will do all it can to protect minors.
In contrast, archdiocesan attorneys wrote a harshly worded 69-page rebuttal to the grand jury report, calling it a "a vile, mean-spirited diatribe" that was "reminiscent of the days of rampant Know-Nothingism in the 1840s" - a time of strong anti-Roman Catholic sentiment.
"The original intent behind the grand jury concept was to shield against abuses of power," the archdiocese said. "In this case, the grand jury was used as a sword to attack the church and build support for insidious pre-judgments."
The 418-page report names 63 priests "whose abusive behavior was well-documented in archdiocese files and by witnesses who testified" before the grand jury. All had multiple victims, and many more abusers certainly exist, the grand jury concluded.
Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham convened the grand jury investigation in April 2002 amid a nationwide scandal following the disclosure of widespread abuse in the Boston archdiocese. In the Philadelphia area, church officials have said that 44 priests had been "credibly" accused of sexual assaults since the 1950s.
Only one priest in the archdiocese has been indicted.
The Rev. Raymond Leneweaver, an assistant pastor at St. Agnes parish in West Chester from 1975 to 1980, was among the list of priests who had admitted abusing children during his tenure as a priest.
According to the report, Leneweaver was named assistant pastor of St. Agnes in August 1975, despite seven admitted instances of long-term sexual abuse of children and the fact that the parish had a grammar school.
One family notified then-pastor Msgr. Lawrence Kelly, who confessed knowing other boys were frequent visitors to Leneweaver's bedroom, that their son had been abused and threatened to go to the police.
The allegation, which Leneweaver admitted was true, led to his removal from the parish and reassignment to another parish. After his transfer, two more allegations surfaced from two boys from St. Agnes.
At one point, Leneweaver's misbehavior was deemed so widespread that there were only two areas of the diocese where he could still be assigned.
Leneweaver left the ministry on his own accord in 1980. As recently as the 2003-04 school year, taught Latin in the Radnor School District in Delaware County.
Another priest whose abuse was documented in the report was the Rev. Peter Dunne, who was a pastor at Sacred Heart Church in Oxford, from 1983 to 1986.
In April 1986, the archdiocese was informed that Dunne had sexually abused a boy beginning in the late 1950s when the boy was 13.
At one point, Dunne had two 21-year-old men living with him in the rectory.
That was reported to a therapist at St. John Vianney Hospital in Downingtown and passed on to two high-ranking officials of the archdiocese, including then-Assistant Chancellor John Graf, who is currently pastor of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in West Grove.
Despite the interview, in which he admitted to abusing the two young men, Dunne was reassigned to a parish in Warminster.
Graf met with Dunne again in 1989, and according to a memo noted that "the counselor (at Southdown Institute in Canada) stated that (Dunne's) lifestyle shows evidence that the situations of inappropriate behavior could be beyond what we already know of Father's conduct."
Regardless, Dunne remained an assistant pastor in two different areas.
Graf also was informed of allegations involving the Rev. James Brzyski, who the report claims sexually abused 100 victims in just seven years spent in the Archdiocese.
Following a meeting with one victim's family, Graf wrote a memo stating, "(Brzyski) would take up with a particular boy, then drop this boy and move on to other relationships." Graf also noted that these "particular friendships" included "rather young boys, 10, 11 and 12 years old."
Despite another detailed account by a victim's parents of their own son's abuse, as well as clear indications that others were being abused, Graf still was unclear whether he should investigate further because he said the information was "indirect."
According to another news account, Graf allegedly told another priest to keep his mouth shut about allegations about Brzyski.
Graf was not at the rectory on Wednesday afternoon, where an unknown church employee said he would not be available for comment.
The archdiocese finally requested Brzyski be laicized in 2004, 20 years after he had admitted sexually abusing altar boys.
State laws, including legal time limits, prevented prosecutors from filing charges in any of these cases, as well as numerous others, the report said. The grand jury also explored the possibility of charges against the archdiocese, but said the organization could not be prosecuted because it is an unincorporated association rather than a corporation.
"Archdiocese leaders have endangered and harmed children in parishes and schools by keeping known abusers in ministry and transferring discovered abusers to assignments where parents and potential victims are unaware of the priests' sexual predations," the report said.
"The evidence is clear. This reaches the top - the very top of our archdiocese," Abraham said at a news conference. "Regrettably, the perpetrators of these crimes and the people that protected them will never face the penalties they deserve."
The grand jury found that Krol and Bevilacqua knew that priests were molesting and raping children but conducted bogus "non-investigations" designed to avoid uncovering abuse. The Cardinals and their aides also transferred known abusers to other parishes, according to the report, a decision determined by the risk of a scandal or lawsuit rather than a danger posed to the community.
Worst of all, the grand jury said, is that hundreds of children were molested, raped and subjected to a lifetime of despair because of the archdiocese's "purposeful decisions, carefully implemented policies and calculated indifference."
The archdiocese denied allegations of a cover-up and contended that prosecutors taking testimony from Bevilacqua - whom it referred to as "inquisitors" - sought to "bully and intimidate" him.
"Cardinal Bevilacqua's remarkable record of service belies the report's vicious treatment of him," the archdiocese said. "This personal attack against a long standing leader in our community was neither accurate nor necessary."
The grand jury urged that Pennsylvania abolish its statute of limitations for sexual offenses against children, expand the offense of child endangerment to include caretakers and supervisors, and allow unincorporated associations to be subject to criminal prosecution just as corporations are.
"At least for today, the archdiocese has beaten the system," said John Salveson, spokesman for the Philadelphia chapter of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests and Other Clergy. "But ... we will not give up the fight. Our need for justice will not allow it."
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
To see the Grand jury report (contains explicit material) log on to www.philadelphiadistrictattorney.com/pages/1/index.htm. For the Archdiocese response log on to www.archdiocese-phl.org/grandjury.htm.
