Scathing sex abuse report names 300 accused Catholic priests — including some with NJ ties

More than 1,000 children were sexually abused by at least 300 priests in six Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania while top church officials tried to cover up the problem for decades, according to a blistering report released Tuesday by a grand jury.

The 1,356-page document names many of the accused priests — including at least four who had served in New Jersey.

The priests with New Jersey ties in the report include:

• The Rev. James Hopkins, who was transferred from Pennsylvania to the Diocese of Camden in 1973. He pled guilty to sexually molesting an altar boy in Camden County and received a ten year prison sentence.
• The Rev. Augustine Giella, who served in parishes in Hackensack, Jersey City, Cliffside Park and Glen Rock before moving to Pennsylvania. He died in 1992 while awaiting trial on child molestation and child pornography charges.
• The Rev. A. Gregory Uhrig, who worked as an assistant at St. Francis Cathedral in Metuchen in the 1980s and returned to New Jersey in the 1990s. He was removed as pastor of St. Luke Roman Catholic Parish in North Plainfield in 2010 after allegations he sexually abused a minor 30 years ago in Pennsylvania.
• The Rev. John P. Connor, who served in parishes in Vineland, Gloucester and Haddon Heights in the 1960s. He was also on the faculty of Paul VI High School in Haddon Township until he moved to Pennsylvania in 1970. He was removed from ministry in 2002 and assigned “to a life of prayer and penance” in a retirement facility after being accused of abuse, according to news reports that one of his alleged victims reached with the Diocese of Pittsburgh in 2010. 

The investigation by a Pennsylvania grand jury, considered the most sweeping look at sex abuse in the U.S. Catholic Church, looked into abuse claims in the dioceses of Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Scranton, Erie and Greensburg.

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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,” Shapiro said at a news conference in Harrisburg.

Several of the priests named in the report went to court to keep their names from being released. Their identities were redacted from the report.

The report begins with plea from the grand jury that readers who have grown weary of hearing about priest sex abuse pay attention to their investigation.

“There have been other reports about child sex abuse within the Catholic Church. But never on this scale. For many of us, those earlier stories happened someplace else, someplace away. Now we know the truth: it happened everywhere,” the report said.

The grand jury placed blame on church leaders for covering up abuse and moving accused priests from parish to parish.

The report singled out 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.

In a statement, Wuerl defended himself. He said he “acted with diligence, with concern for the victims and to prevent future acts of abuse.”

Two priests named in the report were charged as a result of the grand jury probe. But, most of the other accused priests named in the document are either dead or unlikely to be charged because their crimes are decades old.

The report comes as priest sexual abuse has been in the headlines again with the resignation of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who stepped down this summer after accusations he sexually abused at least two boys.

Pope Francis stripped McCarrick of his cardinal title and told him to remain in prayer and penance until a church trial.

McCarrick, the former head of the Archdiocese of Newark and the Diocese of Metuchen, was also accused of sexual misconduct with at least three adults during his time in New Jersey, including two cases that resulted in settlements, church officials said.

Last week, the head of the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey’s largest Catholic diocese, said he has ordered a re-examination of sexual abuse cases in his parishes.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin has “arranged for an external firm to audit all the personal files” of the Newark Archdiocese in the wake of revelations about previously-undisclosed settlements involving McCarrick, a spokesman said.

Tobin did not say if the archdiocese planned to make the names of priests accused of sexual abuse public after the audit of the New Jersey cases.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KellyHeyboer. Find her at KellyHeyboerReporter on Facebook.

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