Baltimore: According to a damning report issued by the Maryland Attorney General's Office following a four-year investigation, the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore covered up decades of child sexual abuse by priests and other church leaders dating back as far as the 1940s.

The report, which was made public on Wednesday, claims that more than 150 members of the clergy, nuns, seminarians, and deacons sexually abused more than 600 children.

The investigation claimed that there had been a "incontrovertible history" of "pervasive, pernicious, and persistent abuse," which had been tolerated because diocese officials preferred to protect the organisation over the children in their congregations and schools.

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Attorney General Anthony Brown said in a statement that the report "illustrates the depraved, systemic failure of the archdiocese to protect the most vulnerable - the children it was charged to keep safe."

The sheer quantity of abusers and victims, the depravity of the abusers' behaviour, and the frequency with which known abusers were given the chance to continue exploiting children were all noted in the report as being "astonishing."

In fact, it is claimed that the abuse was so widespread that some churches and schools simultaneously employed more than one offender. 11 different abusers were found in a parish in Catonsville, Maryland, between 1964 and 2004.

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According to the state report, the archdiocese, the oldest Roman Catholic diocese in the US, failed to defend victims after allegations of abuse came to light. For instance, the diocese informed the victim that the clergyman would receive therapy and be reassigned away from children after learning in 1987 that he had sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and confessed to being "aroused by some young girls."

Until additional victims came forward in 1994, the diocese did not take any further action. The report stated that by that point, nine additional girls had experienced abuse and that there were signs of additional victims who opted not to come forward.

The investigation concentrated on incidents that occurred before 2002, when the church underwent reforms, including lifetime bans for offenders, as a result of a bombshell media exposé on the Archdiocese of Boston's alleged cover-up of sexual abuse allegations.

However, according to the attorney general's office, the Archdiocese of Maryland did not fully carry out essential reforms. For instance, it did not disclose all of the abusers it was aware of, and it permitted some of them to retire with pensions rather than being fired.

In order to enable victims of childhood sexual abuse in Maryland to file civil lawsuits for their damages, the report recommended removing the state's statute of limitations on such claims.

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On Wednesday, state lawmakers approved a bill that would remove the current prohibition on alleged victims filing lawsuits after they reach the age of 38.