A Washington state judge said Friday that Attorney General Bob Ferguson shouldn’t be entitled to implement a subpoena looking for many years of records from the Seattle Archdiocese, despite his assertion that the records are needed to learn whether the Catholic church used charitable trust funds to cover up sexual abuse by priests.
Judge Michael Scott sided with the archdiocese, which argued that under the state’s law governing charitable trusts, Ferguson didn’t have authority to implement the subpoena. The law incorporates an exemption designed to make sure the state doesn’t meddle in religious practices.
Nevertheless, Seattle Archbishop Paul D. Etienne said in a written statement after Friday’s decision that the church is willing to offer the state with relevant records and collaborate with Ferguson on the investigation “in a lawful manner.”
“Sexual abuse within the Church is a heart-wrenching a part of our history, and I’m deeply sorry for the pain caused to victim survivors, their families and all Catholics,” Etienne said. “We remain focused on the necessity for healing and proper governance in these matters. … Because we’re committed to stopping abuse, promoting transparency and constantly improving our processes, my offer to collaborate with the attorney general still stands.”
Ferguson, himself a Catholic, said his office would appeal. The state argued that the exemption within the law does protect religious practices — but that using charitable trust money to hide or facilitate sex abuse was not a non secular practice.
“Our fight for survivors of clergy abuse shouldn’t be over,” Ferguson said in a news release. “Washingtonians deserve a full public accounting of the Church’s involvement in and responsibility for the kid sexual abuse crisis.”
Ferguson filed the case in May, saying the church was stonewalling its investigation by refusing to comply with the subpoena.
At the time, the archdiocese called his allegations a surprise, saying it welcomed the investigation and shares the state’s goals — “stopping abuse and helping victim survivors on their path to healing and peace.”
Church officials said the records sought by the state were excessive and irrelevant — including every receipt going back to 1940, in an archdiocese with greater than 170 pastoral locations and 72 schools.
Some 23 states have conducted investigations of the Catholic church, and thus far not less than nine have issued reports detailing their findings. In some cases, those findings have gone far beyond what church officials had voluntarily disclosed.
For example, the six Catholic dioceses in Illinois had reported publicly that there had been 103 clerics and non secular brothers credibly accused of kid sex abuse. But in a scathing report last yr, the Illinois attorney general’s office said it had uncovered detailed information on 451 who had sexually abused not less than 1,997 children.
Similarly, Maryland last yr reported staggering evidence of just how widespread the abuse was: More than 150 Catholic priests and others related to the Archdiocese of Baltimore sexually abused over 600 children and infrequently escaped accountability. In 2018, a Pennsylvania grand jury found that greater than 300 Catholic clerics had abused greater than 1,000 children in that state over the prior 70 years.
The Seattle Archdiocese has published a listing of 83 clerics it says were credibly accused, and it says that starting within the Nineteen Eighties it was one in every of the primary within the nation to start adopting policies to handle and forestall sexual abuse by priests. Sexual abuse by church personnel peaked in 1975, and there have been no reports since 2007, the archdiocese said.
