Two former NC priests named in Pennsylvania clergy sex abuse report

Two priests who once worked in North Carolina were among the hundreds named in a scathing grand jury investigation into the molestation of children in six Pennsylvania dioceses and subsequent cover-up over several decades.

Posted 5:31 p.m. Aug 16, 2018 — Updated 5:31 p.m. Aug 16, 2018

RALEIGH, N.C. — Two priests who once worked in North Carolina were among the hundreds named in a scathing grand jury investigation into the molestation of children in six Pennsylvania dioceses and subsequent cover-up over several decades.

"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," Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said at a Tuesday news conference to announce the grand jury's findings.

The report put the number of abusive clergy at more than 300. The Diocese of Raleigh, which covers the eastern half of North Carolina, said in a statement that two of the priests named, Fr. William Presley and Fr. Robert Spangenberg, worked in North Carolina in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Presley served in Kinston from 1981 to 1983, while Spangenberg was at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Newton Grove and Immaculate Conception Church in Clinton from 1977 to 1979, the diocese said.

Raleigh diocese officials urged anyone who was harmed by either priest or who knows an abuse victim, to call John Pendergrass, director of the diocese's Office of Child and Youth Protection, toll-free at 866-535-7233.

Church officials "routinely and purposefully described the abuse as horseplay and wrestling" and simply "inappropriate conduct," Shapiro said.

"It was none of those things. It was child sexual abuse, including rape," he said.

The report identified more than 1,000 victims dating to the 1940s but said the "real number" of abused children might be much higher since some secret church records were lost and victims were afraid to come forward.

The abuse ranged from groping and masturbation to anal, oral and vaginal rape. One boy was forced to say confession to the priest who sexually abused him. A 9-year-old boy was forced to perform oral sex and then had his mouth washed out with holy water. Another boy was made to pose naked as if being crucified and then was photographed by a group of priests who Shapiro said produced and shared child pornography on church grounds.

The grand jury concluded that a succession of Catholic bishops and other diocesan leaders tried to shield the church from bad publicity and financial liability. They failed to report accused clergy to police and sent abusive priests to so-called "treatment facilities," which "laundered" the priests and "permitted hundreds of known offenders to return to ministry," the report said.

The grand jury probe was the most extensive investigation of Catholic clergy abuse by any state. Its findings echoed many earlier church investigations around the country, describing widespread sexual abuse and church officials' concealment of it. U.S. bishops have acknowledged that more than 17,000 people nationwide have reported being molested by priests and others in the church.

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