By: Rebecca Akinremi

A new grand jury report revealed that over 1000 children were sexually abused by hundreds of “predator priests” in Pennsylvania.

The report which was released on Tuesday investigated Roman Catholic priests dating back to 1947 in six dioceses: Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton.

It showed that the victims – mainly boys, but there were girls  – were molested, made to masturbate, raped (orally, vaginally, or anally), and manipulated with alcohol or phonography.

“Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all,” part of the report read.

“For decades, Monsignors, Auxiliary Bishops, Bishops, Archbishops, Cardinals have mostly been protected; many, including some named in this report, have been promoted.

“Until that changes, we think it is too early to close the book on the Catholic Church sex scandal.”

The 1,356-page-report suggested that the real number of child abuse victims was likely to be in the thousands as several affected were afraid to come forward.

Some of the odious stories include: a priest who raped a seven-year-old girl in the hospital after her tonsils were removed; a priest who made a nine-year-old give him oral sex then rinsed out the boy’s mouth with holy water to ‘purify’ him; or a boy who drank some juice at his priest’s house, and woke up the next morning bleeding from his rectum, unable to remember anything from the night before.

According to CNN, Cardinal Daniel-President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said the grand jury’s report illustrated the pain of those who had been victims of sexual abuse by individual members of their clergy. But the Vatican declined to comment on the grand jury report.

The Pennyslvania report came barely one month after the Catholic Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, resigned following allegations of sexually abusing minors and adult seminarians over the course of decades.