New Jersey Supreme Court decided unanimously on Friday that the state’s attorney general can move forward with a grand jury investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy statewide, originally announced in September 2018.
Seven years ago, then-attorney general Gurbir Grewal said he was forming a task force after a report by a grand jury in Pennsylvania found more than 1,000 victims over 70 years. The PA report also implicated around 300 priests and found evidence of a coverup by church leaders.
The reason behind the court’s delayed decision was suggested by a NorthJersey.com article on Feb. 5, which said that the Diocese of Camden had challenged New Jersey’s authority to empanel a special grand jury to lead the sex-abuse inquiry at a secret hearing in May 2023. That inquiry was supposed to end with a comprehensive report documenting individual abusers as well as any broader coverup by the church.
According to the article, state Superior Court judge Peter Warshaw sided with Camden for various reasons, including that state law allows special grand juries to investigate public officials or government agencies, not a private institution like the Catholic Church or individual priests, he said.
Warshaw cited that clergy members could be accused, but because accusations would not include formal criminal indictments, they would not be able to challenge the evidence in court, giving “so many living and dead” no “opportunity to defend.”
Meanwhile, most other states that followed in Pennsylvania's footsteps with their own inquiries into local dioceses only took two years to complete their reviews. At least 23 other states around the country, including New York, Kentucky, Nebraska, and as of February, Michigan, have conducted their own public reviews into local dioceses.
In his ruling on Friday, Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner said a lower court that sided with the Camden diocese should have followed protocols and allowed the grand jury to proceed, at least until it had submitted a report, known in legal circles as a “presentment,” on its findings.
The university had no comment on the situation.
Battle between church and university
But this is not the only case looming over New Jersey’s Catholic dioceses, particularly the Archdiocese of Newark. The Setonian previously reported on a series of Politico articles regarding a 2019 report produced by the law firm Latham & Watkins to investigate possible sexual abuse at Seton Hall’s seminaries, including abuse allegations against the now-defrocked former Archbishop of Newark , Theodore McCarrick (in April, McCarrick died at 94). According to Politico, the Latham report—which has not been released publicly—found that Reilly was aware of sexual harassment allegations involving ICS seminarians and did not report such allegations to SHU officials, in violation of the university’s Title IX policies.
Newark’s current archbishop, Cardinal Joseph Tobin, enlisted the law firm Ropes & Gray in February to conduct a “comprehensive third-party review of the facts” regarding the Latham report.
“The Ropes & Gray review will have the full cooperation of the Board of Regents and Seton Hall University,” Tobin said in his statement announcing the review. “I have not placed a timetable on this review by Ropes & Gray, nor have I restricted the firm from exploring any relevant facts or avenue of investigation.”
Despite pledging “full cooperation” in the Ropes & Gray review, SHU has blocked a key witness from speaking with investigators, Politico revealed in May. That month, the university blocked a key witness—Joseph Nyre, SHU’s former president—who had been scheduled to speak with investigators until the school intervened. Nyre had sued the university in 2024 for retaliation and breach of contract, while the school filed a lawsuit against him in February, alleging that Nyre illicitly accessed and distributed confidential documents that formed the basis of Politico’s reporting about Reilly.
“Either the Cardinal has been overruled by his own board, including the bishops who sit on it, or the openness he promised is being applied only when convenient,” Nyre said in a statement to Politico—his first public comments since leaving the presidency. “The public deserves to know which it is.”
Newark archdiocese spokeswoman Maria Margiotta told Politico that “ongoing litigation” involving SHU, to which the Archdiocese is not a party, has created roadblocks in completing the review.
“Cardinal Tobin stands by his earlier statement that there should be no restrictions on Ropes & Gray’s effort to access all relevant information and witnesses,” she said.
Reilly remains a highly visible figure on campus. Most recently, he was involved in SHU’s commencement in May and was the subject of an exclusive interview by SHU TV.
Latham report & pending litigation
With SHU defending its decision to appoint Reilly as president, university officials have taken steps to keep the Latham report confidential. Now, as in other cases involving the Catholic Church, a judge’s ruling may force the university to release it.
On March 18, New Jersey Superior Court judge Avion Benjamin ordered SHU to hand over the report. It is not clear when Benjamin will receive the report and other relevant documents.
The order comes amid the recently uncovered litigation of 450 claims of sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of Newark, dating back decades. In 2020, a judge overseeing the case ordered the archdiocese to disclose documents to plaintiffs, but SHU’s attorneys argued they did not have to comply with that order because the university is a separately named defendant in only six of the 450 cases.
It is not clear if the 450 claims of abuse are connected to the pending attorney general’s investigation into clergy abuse statewide.
Lawyers for alleged victims in the litigation against the archdiocese did not know of the Latham report’s existence until Politico began reporting about it, according to Dustin Racioppi, the author of those Politico articles. University lawyers argued in court that they did not want to release the report because the people interviewed for it were promised confidentiality and because SHU “is not part of” the archdiocese.
SHU is a diocesan university within the Archdiocese of Newark, and the archbishop—currently Tobin—serves as president of the university’s Board of Regents and chair of the Board of Trustees, which is mandated in SHU’s by-laws.
The university made various changes in response to the Latham report, according to university officials.
“Seton Hall has significantly strengthened its Title IX reporting, enforcement, and prevention procedures in recent years, including expanded training for students and employees, enhanced response protocols, and the creation of new support resources for those affected,” said SHU spokesperson Michael Hyland in an email to The Setonian.
Hyland said the six claims of alleged misconduct against SHU, which are part of the 450 claims pending against the archdiocese, are older claims from at least 25 years ago.
“There are no complaints of sexual harassment arising from St. Andrew’s or ICS [Immaculate Conception Seminary] currently under review,” he added.
Sophomore exercise science major Julianna MacNeir said she believes the existence of the 450 claims of abuse is “f----d up,” and said that the university fighting to keep the report confidential was “sketchy.”
“If they did handle it right, and if there was nothing wrong going on, what is there to hide?” MacNeir said. “Why not just comply with it?”
Senior interprofessional health sciences major Edgard Peralta agreed, stating that it “shows Seton Hall prioritizing one person over the entire student body.”
John Artuso, a sophomore political science major, said that he understood there are privacy concerns when it comes to the report, but that the church needs to “admit defeat and hold itself accountable.”
Racioppi gave insight into the repercussions of the court decision in a March 19 interview with NJ Spotlight News.
“They’re dealing with about 450 cases of alleged abuse…going back 70, 80 years,” Racioppi said. “They’re wrestling with thousands, if not millions, of documents. So the Seton Hall 2019 report is just going to fold into all that and I think they [the plaintiffs’ attorneys] believe that this is going to make their broader case that there is long-standing systemic issues within the church.”
History of NJ clergy abuse handling
As victims wait for the results of the just-approved grand jury investigation in NJ , the next step is for Camden to turn over more records on clergy abuse accusations, a step the diocese fought, said Greg Gianforcaro, a Phillipsburg-based attorney who represents clergy abuse victims around the country.
The court’s decision came after the new bishop of Camden, Joseph A. Williams, announced in May that his diocese would no longer oppose the statewide investigation—a “stunning reversal,” according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. At the time, it was not clear what impact, if any, the change in position might have on the court’s decision.
The decision also came after a hearing on April 28, which saw members of New Jersey’s Supreme Court sounding “skeptical” regarding the Camden diocese’s efforts to challenge the state. The same day the April hearing was announced, the NJ Supreme Court released all the court records revealing the Catholic church’s quest to stop the state’s investigation.
The court documents showed that even as a surge of briefings were submitted to the court, more than 550 phone calls had come into the state’s 24-hour task force hotline with callers “who alleged sexual, physical, verbal and mental abuse by clergy dating back to the 1940s and continuing to the recent past.” The calls also detailed actions by church officials to conceal misconduct, such as shuffling accused priests among parishes and promoting clergy who molested children, the state’s brief said.
As for the other four dioceses—based in Newark, Paterson, Metuchen, and Trenton—Margiotta told NorthJersey.com that all had “fully cooperated” with the state and “have not filed or joined any motions before any court to delay or impede any investigation by the State of New Jersey.”
However, the state said all five dioceses failed to comply fully with requests, including subpoenas seeking evaluation and treatment records for specific priests accused of sexual assaults.
Despite this, Margiotta said the archdiocese remained “committed to the principles of transparency set forth in the 2002 Memorandum of Understanding between the State of New Jersey and each of the dioceses in New Jersey.”
Margiotta did not respond with a comment when reached for this story.
Before 2002, the church often failed to take strong action against accused priests. That year, after The Boston Globe investigated priest abuse and the ensuing national crisis, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops came to an agreement known as the Dallas Charter, which required any priest who is credibly accused of sexually abusing a child to be removed from ministry.
Before the 2000s, child sex abuse by Catholic clerics was, for the most part, considered a series of isolated incidents. But The Boston Globe discovered a culture of priests who had molested children being reassigned to new parishes rather than being held accountable for their actions. Within two years of the first of the Globe’s 800 articles on the scandal appearing in January 2002, 150 priests in Boston stood accused of sexual abuse, more than 500 victims had filed abuse claims, and churchgoers’ donations to the archdiocese had dropped by 50%.
That same year, review boards were established in each diocese to determine whether allegations were credible.
However, a 2019 Associated Press investigation into these review boards found that the boards had often gone astray, shielding accused priests and operating in secrecy. The investigation found several cases in which complaints were rejected by the boards and later validated by secular authorities. This came after the allegations of sexual abuse against McCarrick were made public in 2018.
The lawyer who worked on the case central to The Boston Globe’s pursuit of their 2002 investigation said he struggled to access the Archdiocese of Boston’s personnel records—often referred to as dioceses’ “secret files.” The Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law requires every diocese to maintain this archive, which is a locked safe for storage of the “most carefully guarded” documents.” The only person who has the key is the bishop. The archives are believed to contain priests’ files, including potentially incriminating information about allegations of abuse and the participation of supervisors in coverups.
Victims of clergy abuse and advocates have requested the release of these records.
Tobin’s critics contend that Camden would not have been able to quash the attorney general’s investigation proceedings without his approval. He and the church have also been criticized for some dioceses’ efforts to regain parishioners’ trust, like the 2019 release of a list of 188 clergy who had been “credibly accused” of sexually assaulting children.
Abuse advocates say the list is incomplete and hasn’t been updated despite new evidence. In 2019, Tobin said that the release of the list was not an “endpoint” and that it would continue to publish the names of any priests or deacons who are credibly accused of sexual misconduct with a minor.
The list excluded anyone accused of abusing young adults after they turned 18, and priests of religious orders who were ordained by local bishops and had been accused of sexually abusing children in diocesan churches. Finally, there was (and remains) no reporting by church officials on whether bishops or other Catholic leaders might have been disciplined for helping to cover up the reports of abuse. These are details that the attorney general’s investigation could reveal.
Additionally, in 2022, the five Catholic dioceses in the state retired the New Jersey Independent Victim Compensation Program, established in June 2019, after paying more than $40 million to 348 clergy abuse survivors. This followed the Archdiocese of Newark rescinding funding in 2020 for therapy sessions for any victim who accepted a settlement from the diocese’s victims’ compensation fund or who sued over alleged assault.
In April, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) held a press conference in front of SHU’s Ward Gate to announce a formal complaint filing against Tobin, urging a Vatican investigation.
One recipient of the complaint was then-Cardinal Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XVI. Before Prevost was chosen as the new pontiff during the papal conclave in May, he was one of the top American contenders for the role, alongside Tobin, despite he, too, having a complaint filed against him by SNAP.
The complaint against Tobin claimed that in 2018, Tobin told a journalist after taking over as archbishop in Newark that he heard “rumors” about McCarrick and a beach house where he had abused seminarians but never investigated them, saying the story was too “incredulous” to believe. The complaint also claimed that the archdiocese instructed Reilly not to cooperate with SHU’s investigation into McCarrick’s conduct on campus.
The first claim matches a NorthJersey.com interview Tobin was the subject of in August 2018.
The influence of priests who committed sex abuse on SHU’s campus has been felt in multiple ways, including the church’s harboring of McCarrick at the university—even after allegations against McCarrick were presented to Pope John Paul II before he decided to appoint McCarrick as archbishop of Washington in 2000.
Following McCarrick’s resignation, Vatican officials wanted to lower his profile, according to past Setonian reporting. So, McCarrick reached out to then-SHU president Msgr. Robert Sheeran and requested to live part-time in Gerety Hall, a small on-campus apartment complex for priests. Despite strong opposition from then-Newark Archbishop John Myers, McCarrick was ultimately assigned an apartment in Gerety Hall, holding items belonging to him until 2019.
The article also said that Myers was privy to some of the allegations against McCarrick, which included two 2002 letters claiming inappropriate conduct on behalf of the cardinal. In both instances, it appears that Myers did not find the information credible and did not launch an investigation into the claims.
Myers, who was succeeded by Tobin, has been criticized for how he handled some sexual abuse allegations made against priests of the archdiocese, including in the case of the defrocked Michael Fugee. Myers allowed Fugee to live in a church rectory after the cleric was convicted in 2003 of aggravated criminal sexual contact. Although the charge was dismissed, he later violated an agreement that he would not work with children when he was found to be hearing confessions at youth group retreats across the state in 2013.
Another archbishop of Newark, Peter Leo Gerety (Gerety Hall’s namesake), was accused of sexual abuse in a 2021 lawsuit by a 49-year-old woman who was 5 at the time. Gerety, who served as archbishop from 1974 to 1986, also had lawsuits filed against him alleging his approval of a convicted priest’s transfer to Missouri and his cover-up of the groping of a SHU student in 1984 by a priest who was part of a campus ministry program.
Although Tobin maintained in the August 2018 interview with NorthJersey.com that he was unaware of the archdiocese secretly arranging to pay $180,000 to settle two claims of sexual abuse against McCarrick when he took over from Myers, the current litigation occurring in Newark and at SHU is raising questions about transparency in New Jersey’s Catholic dioceses with people like John Baldante, one of the lawyers representing hundreds of plaintiffs suing the Newark archdiocese.
“These institutions, whether it’s the archdiocese or its related entities, systemically and institutionally engaged in behavior to cover up and keep secret complaints and reports of sexual abuse,” Baldante said to the New Jersey Monitor. “That’s really one of the major themes of our cases, and that’s what we’re going to hopefully prove when these cases come up for trial.”
Baldante added that the battle between the church and the state is no simple issue.
“The Catholic Church has always suggested that sexual abuse is just an isolated, bad apple, and our argument in this litigation is it’s not just a bad apple. It’s an orchard,” he said.
And although victims have won the latest battle between themselves and the Catholic church, the question of whether SHU will comply with the investigation against its president persists.
To regain trust, Maya Vaitovas, a senior double majoring in philosophy and biology in the 3+3 physician assistant program, said that the university—and the church as a whole—can take certain steps.
“Release the report that, as it seems, they’re trying to hide,” Vaitovas said. “Any undisclosed information that would even slightly be related should also be reported because this is currently an issue of breaking trust and hiding information. The only way to re-establish trust is to be fully honest.”
Jacqueline Litowinsky is a copy editor for The Setonian. She can be reached at jacqueline.litowinsky@student.shu.edu
