BOSTON, June 19 (UPI) -- A grand jury reportedly is investigating possible criminal charges against Boston Roman Catholic Cardinal Bernard Law in the clergy sex abuse scandal, but the ages of the cases involved appeared to make indictments unlikely.
While state Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly declined to confirm whether a grand jury is looking into the issue, he did say that his office in recent months has been "using every tool available" to investigate whether there is enough evidence to bring charges against church leaders.
The Boston Globe and the Boston Herald on Wednesday quoted unnamed sources saying that Reilly convened the grand jury to examine thousands of pages of documents obtained from the Archdiocese of Boston dealing with allegations of child sex abuse by priests.
At issue is whether Law and others in the church hierarchy could face aiding and abetting or accessory after the fact charges for covering up for the abusive priests, transferring them from parish to parish despite knowing of allegations against them.
Since the scandal erupted in Boston in January, prosecutors and civil lawyers representing alleged victims suing Law and the archdiocese have obtained reams of church documents concerning known abusers.
Those documents show that for decades church leaders were aware of abuse allegations against priests, yet allowed them to continue parish work where they continued to have access to children.
However, legal experts have said that because the statutes of limitations have run out on decades-old cases already revealed, bringing criminal charges would be difficult.
Reilly agrees.
"We have scores of older cases" that show church leaders at the highest levels knew that children were at risk, but "we don't have recent cases," Reilly said on WBZ radio Wednesday morning.
"Absent recent cases it makes it more difficult" to bring charges, he said. Despite that difficulty, the attorney general said, "We're still trying. We have an obligation to get to the bottom of this and to certainly do our best to hold people accountable and that's what we're doing."
Reilly said there are "clear patterns" that while church leaders knew children were at risk, there was "very little effort to protect those children. Certainly the emphasis and the effort was protecting the image of the church and the priests, at the expense of children, and that's intolerable."
Reilly's office declined to confirm the grand jury investigation, saying such proceedings are secret.
A spokeswoman for the archdiocese said she was unaware of any grand jury investigation.
In another development, a Westchester County, N.Y., grand jury issued a report Tuesday urging state lawmakers to pass new laws to make it a felony for church officials to cover up for abusive priests in the New York Archdiocese.
