Michigan releases report accusing 56 people of sexual abuse in Catholic diocese
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Michigan’s top state prosecutor on Monday issued a report outlining allegations against nearly 60 people at the Roman Catholic diocese of Lansing accused of sexually abusing children and vulnerable adults over the last seven decades.
The state attorney general Dana Nessel’s office published the report as part of a years-long investigation into clergy sexual abuse within Michigan’s Catholic dioceses.
The investigation, which began in September 2018, found that 48 priests, three religious brothers, one apparent former religious brother and four deacons were suspected of engaging in sexual misconduct in the Lansing diocese since 1950. The report includes victim interviews, tips, police investigations and documents seized from the diocese amid the decades-old global and US reckoning with clergy sexual misconduct.
Of the 56 total accused, 42 were ordained or incardinated by the diocese of Lansing. The number of offenders identified in Lansing is a fewer number than that reported in other dioceses elsewhere in the US – but the diocese is also not among the largest organizations of its kind in the country.
Nessel’s office said Monday that it had filed charges in 11 Catholic clergy abuse cases across Michigan during its statewide investigation. Nine led to convictions.
Two of those cases involved priests in the diocese of Lansing, and one involved an apparent former religious brother, as the Detroit News noted.
A priest named Vincent DeLorenzo was sentenced to one year in jail and five years of probation in June 2023 for one count of attempted first-degree criminal sexual assault of a five-year-old boy. DeLorenzo died in January while serving his sentence.
DeLorenzo’s fellow priest Timothy Crowley received a one-year jail sentence and five years of probation in November 2023 on two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct. The Detroit News reported that he pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a minor three decades ago.
And Joseph Comperchio, a church organist and Catholic school drama and music teacher who presented himself as a religious brother, was sentenced in August 2021 to between 10 and 30 years in prison for sexually abusing four children. Comperchio died in 2022 while serving his sentence, according to the Detroit News.
Nessel has promised to publish reports for all seven Catholic dioceses of Michigan. Reports for the diocese of Marquette, Gaylord, and Kalamazoo have already been released.
Content retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/17/michigan-sexual-abuse-catholic-disocese.
