The hierarchy "excused and enabled the abuse" for decades, the grand jury said in a 418-page report, while demonstrating "utter indifference to the suffering of the victims."
The grand jurors, who spent three years investigating, concluded that Krol and Bevilacqua were more concerned with protecting the reputation and legal and financial interests of the archdiocese than the children entrusted to its care.
"In its callous, calculating manner, the archdiocese's 'handling' of the abuse scandal was at least as immoral as the abuse itself," the grand jury stated in its report.
Yet the panel recommended no criminal charges, saying it was thwarted by the statute of limitations and a church hierarchy that keep silent about the abuses until it was too late for prosecutors to make a case.
"Regrettably, the perpetrators of these crimes and the people who protected them will never face the criminal penalties that they deserve," District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham said yesterday.
The report called on the legislature to enact a broad array of legislation, including a recall of the statute of limitations related to sexual abuse of minors.
The archdiocese angrily denounced the grand jury report as "incredibly biased and anti-Catholic." In a blistering 70-page response, the church officials and lawyers called it "a vile, mean-spirited diatribe."
While condemning the "abhorrent behavior" of abusive priests, the church vigorously defended Krol and Bevilacqua and said the report was "rife with mistakes, unsupported inferences and misguided conclusions."
