In the months after a shocking Pennsylvania grand jury report on sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests, scattered dioceses across the country started putting out their own lists of molester priests. Some state attorneys general and local district attorneys also announced they would investigate the church.
News outlets began reporting the varied efforts piecemeal. But no one was capturing the big picture – including the sudden urgency being shown by the church to open its books on past abuse.
Reporter Claudia Lauer in the Philadelphia bureau set out to fix that. Starting in November, she began systematically documenting every investigation taking place around the country, whether criminal or civil, and every instance of a diocese naming abusive priests in the wake of the Pennsylvania report. What’s more, she sought to determine how many dioceses intended to name names but hadn’t done so yet.
Former priest James Faluszczak, who says he was molested by a priest as a teenager, reacts as Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaks during a news conference at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., Aug. 14, 2018. A Pennsylvania grand jury report said senior Roman Catholic Church officials systematically covered up the abuse of 1,000 child victims in Pennsylvania dioceses. That report likely contributed to a national surge in naming abuser priests in the months that followed, an AP review found.
AP Photo / Matt Rourke
Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, celebrates Mass at St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington, Aug. 15, 2018. Wuerl resigned as archbishop after a Pennsylvania grand jury report accused him of helping to protect child-molesting priests while he was bishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006.
AP Photo / Kevin Wolf
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro steps from the podium during a news conference at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., Aug. 14, 2018. Shapiro announced the results of grand jury investigation finding that hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania molested more than 1,000 children – and possibly many more – since the 1940s, and senior church officials systematically covered up the abuse. The Pennsylvania report is at least partially credited with a surge in U.S. dioceses naming abuser priests in the months that followed, an AP review found.
AP Photo / Matt Rourke
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro holds the hand of Judy Deaven who says her son was a victim of sexual abuse by a priest as a boy, during a news conference to announce the findings of a grand jury report on sex abuse by clergy, at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., Aug. 14, 2018.
AP Photo / Matt Rourke
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan speaks during a news conference in Chicago, April 23, 2018. In mid-December, Madigan issued a blistering preliminary report saying a review of church files showed dioceses in Illinois had withheld the names of at least 500 clergy accused of sexually abusing children. “It was obvious that this type of concealment, this type of unresolved action in Pennsylvania, that we were going to find the same thing in Illinois,” Madigan said.
Ashlee Rezin / Chicago Sun-Times via AP
With the number of US dioceses totaling 187, it was a time-consuming task. But through a variety of means, she was able to write authoritatively about the far-reaching impact – in just four months – of the Pennsylvania investigation. She perused diocesan websites, checked local news reports, talked with reporters in various states, spoke with a good 10-12 attorney general offices, emailed dioceses and called dozens more, building multiple spreadsheets along the way to track her findings.
All that work paid off with her Jan. 3 exclusive.
It was a story that was impossible to match.
Even as she tallied more than 1,000 names publicized by 50 or so dioceses during the period, she established that over 50 more dioceses were committed to naming names in the months ahead – over half the nation’s dioceses. She was also the first to provide a full picture of the number – nearly 20 – of outside investigations taking place across the country, both criminal and civil.
Once she had all the data in hand, she spoke with former priests, prosecutors, victim advocates and religious experts to put it all in context. She even got a bishop outside Pennsylvania to acknowledge that the grand jury report had given them a greater sense of urgency in releasing names of abusive priests.
It was a story that was impossible to match. The story won phenomenal play online and in print and generated huge interest on social media. Some Catholic publications used her story to provide an update on developments in the church.
Perhaps most gratifying to Lauer was a phone call she got on the Monday after the story ran – from an 83-year-old man who said he had been abused in the late 1940s and appreciated her efforts to shine a light on what had happened in the church.
For her painstaking and dogged work to document what has been happening in the church nationally in the wake of the Pennsylvania report, Lauer wins this week’s Best of the States.