Catholic Church, Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Conspire to Cover Up Child Sex Abuse

In 2018, Attorney General Josh Shapiro identified two groups responsible for working together to cover up accusations from the public: the Catholic church and Pennsylvania Law Enforcement.

"The abuse scarred every diocese", he said. "The cover-up was sophisticated. The church protected the institution at all costs."

This months-long investigation showed that while the church leadership was obviously involved in covering up its crimes, it also had assistance from police and district attorneys who looked the other way.

This inaction, this dereliction of duty, creates a grey area that abusers readily exploit. In its most innocent form, it can be a form of a well-documented phenomenon called the Bystander Effect, which is a more specific case of the Diffusion of Responsibility Principle. Indeed, The Indifference of Good Men is so well-known and such a tragic betrayal that it's often referenced in popular culture too. 

But this is more than mere inaction or indifference. These were conscious decisions to take the side of the abuser over the abused. 

One of the most egregious missed opportunities by law enforcement involved the Rev. Thomas Bender, who was serving at St. Francis Orphanage in Orwigsburg in 1972. That year, the grand jury report said, a state trooper found Bender with a high school-age boy, both with no pants on, in a car. The case was reported by another trooper, who also was a deacon in the church, the grand jury report said.

A report by Monsignor Anthony Muntone to Bishop Thomas J. Welsh, then head of the Allentown Diocese, stated that the first trooper “gave Bender ‘a lecture and sent him on his way.’ ”

The diocese received another complaint about Bender in 1984, the report said. Bender repeatedly raped that victim for years, leading to civil and criminal complaints, it said. The victim had to be hospitalized for a drug overdose and psychiatric problems, which the diocese paid for, it said. Later, two more people accused Bender of sexual abuse in the 1960s.

The full report is available here [PDF].