A Catholic advocacy group called on Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown to halt investigations into child sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware, in a letter Tuesday.

Bill Donahue, president of the national Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, wrote that it was “exasperating” that the attorney general’s office persisted in investigating child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. He called a nearly 500-page report the attorney general published in April on the Archdiocese of Baltimore “a total waste of money,” and he argued that it was unfair for the state to scrutinize decades-old church abuse rather than probing abuse in public schools.

Since Oct. 1, when the Child Victims Act lifted the statute of limitations on sex abuse lawsuits in Maryland, victims have filed a slew of lawsuits alleging abuse at state institutions, including juvenile detention facilities. Meanwhile, Brown is defending the law from a constitutional challenge from the Archdiocese of Washington.

A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office said in a statement Tuesday that there were no plans to suspend its investigations into abuse within the Washington and Wilmington dioceses, which include parishes in Maryland.

“We are hoping survivors and witnesses who have not yet spoken with us might feel prepared to do so now. We want to hear stories from survivors and assure them that their voices will be heard,” the statement said.

Donahue wrote that the previous investigation into the Baltimore archdiocese “did not result in a single indictment.” In fact, the four-year investigation led to the indictment of a former wrestling coach at Mount St. Joseph High School in Baltimore, Neil Adleberg, who was accused of sexually abusing a high school wrestler. A Baltimore County judge acquitted Adleberg in June.

The Catholic League’s letter also argued that continued investigation was unnecessary because the majority of the people accused of abuse in the report had died and much of the abuse occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. Donahue wrote that there were “virtually no instances of alleged abuse” between 1990 and 2019; however, the report does mention multiple incidents of abuse after 1990.

David Lorenz, director of the Maryland chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, wrote in an email to The Baltimore Sun that many victims don’t come forward until middle age, making it harder to know at this point the extent of crimes committed in the last 25 years.

Of the report, he said: “It validated victims and they came forward in droves. It showed church corruption and complicity in crimes.”

After the report documented abuse involving hundreds of victims over the course of eight decades and the new state law was enacted, former students and parishioners filed lawsuits last fall against the Baltimore archdiocese. Those were put on hold when the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy.

A Baltimore archdiocese spokesman said officials there did not talk with Donahue about his letter in advance. A spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

Spokesperson Robert Krebs said the Diocese of Wilmington first read the letter when it was posted online Tuesday. “The Catholic League doesn’t speak for the Diocese of Wilmington,” Krebs said.

He said the diocese is continuing to provide information to the Maryland attorney general and cooperate with the office’s investigation.

Donahue said in an email to The Sun that he decided to send a letter to Brown now because he recently learned that the office was still investigating abuse in the Archdiocese of Washington and Diocese of Wilmington.

“I had lawyers consider a lawsuit last year, but for varying reasons they decided not to pursue it,” Donahue said in the email. “So I decided that the best approach was to do a PR blitz, hoping to galvanize Catholics to contact the Maryland AG.”

He added that his organization has been involved in state cases related to grand jury investigations, including in Pennsylvania.

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(Baltimore Sun reporter Jonathan M. Pitts contributed to this article.)

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