NJ high court to hear case between Catholic diocese, prosecutor over
investigating sex abuse claims
[April 28, 2025]
By MIKE CATALINI
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A Catholic diocese wants to stop New Jersey from
trying to empanel a grand jury to investigate allegations of clergy
sexual abuse, with arguments before the state's high court set for
Monday.
After a Pennsylvania grand jury report found over 1,000 children had
been abused since the 1940s, New Jersey formed a task force in 2018 and
intended to empanel its own grand jury to investigate allegations of
abuse there. But the Diocese of Camden pushed back in court in 2021,
arguing that state law doesn't permit having a grand jury investigate
possible abuse by private church officials.
That legal battle has happened away from public view for years, as
courts had sealed the proceedings in New Jersey and the attorney
general's office didn't share updates. But last month, the state Supreme
Court unsealed a handful of documents between the diocese and the
attorney general after the Bergen Record obtained records detailing the
court battle.
The diocese argues that such grand jury investigations are only for
governments and public officials.
In 2023, a trial court judge sided with the diocese, finding that such a
grand jury would lack authority because it would be focused on “private
conduct,” rather than a government agency's actions. An appeals court
affirmed that judgment last year, and Attorney General Matt Platkin
appealed to the state Supreme Court.
The documents that the high court unsealed in March sketch out some of
what the state's task force has found so far but don't include specific
allegations. The papers show that 550 phone calls alleging abuse from
the 1940s to the “recent past” came into a hotline the state had set up.
The diocese argues a grand jury isn't needed in large part because of a
2002 memorandum of understanding between New Jersey Catholic dioceses
and prosecutors. The memorandum required church officials to report
abuse and said authorities would be provided with all relevant
information about the allegations. One of the court documents says abuse
had been “effectively eradicated” in the church.
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The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Camden, N.J.,
Wednesday, April 20, 2022. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
But the Pennsylvania grand jury report in 2018 touched off a
reexamination of statute of limitations law in New Jersey, which
overhauled its civil statute of limitations on childhood sex abuse
claims in 2019. The new law allows child victims to sue until they
turn 55 or within seven years of their first realization that the
abuse caused them harm. The previous statute of limitations was age
20 or two years after first realizing the abuse caused harm.
Also in 2019, New Jersey’s five Catholic dioceses listed more than
180 priests who have been credibly accused of sexually abusing
minors over a span of several decades, joining more than two dozen
other states that have named suspects of abuse in the wake of the
landmark Pennsylvania grand jury report.
Many priests on the lists were deceased; others were removed from
ministry.
The Camden diocese, like others across the country, filed for
bankruptcy amid a torrent of lawsuits — up to 55, according to court
records — stemming from the relaxed statute of limitations.
Then in 2022, the diocese agreed to pay $87.5 million to settle
claims involving clergy sex abuse with some 300 accusers in one of
the largest cash settlements involving the Catholic church in the
United States.
The agreement by the diocese, which encompasses six counties in
southern New Jersey on the outskirts of Philadelphia, exceeded the
nearly $85 million settlement in 2003 in the clergy abuse scandal in
Boston, but was less than other settlements in California and
Oregon.
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