波士顿，9月30日电 据马萨诸塞州总检察长周三发布的一份调查报告显示，超过270名天主教神职人员在数十年间，在该州三个教区性侵了近1000名儿童。
BOSTON, Sept 30 - More than 270 Catholic clerics sexually abused nearly 1,000 children across three Massachusetts dioceses over decades, according to an investigative report the state's attorney general released on Wednesday.
马萨诸塞州总检察长安德烈亚·乔伊·坎贝尔表示，该报告首次全面公开了福尔里弗、斯普林菲尔德和伍斯特三个天主教教区长达半个多世纪以来发生的性侵案件及制度性失职。
The report provided what Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell called the first full public accounting of the abuse and institutional failures that allowed it to proliferate for more than half a century at the Catholic dioceses of Fall River, Springfield and Worcester.
调查发现，多年来这些教区知晓神父性侵儿童，但“往往为了保护教会名誉，而非保护儿童”，坎贝尔说。
The investigation found that for years those dioceses knew that children were being abused by priests, but "too often they protected the reputation of the church rather than protecting children," she said.
坎贝尔在记者会上表示：“每一个数字背后，都是一个安全受到侵犯的孩子、一个永远改变的家庭，以及一个背负着创伤数年甚至数十年的幸存者。”
"Behind every one of those numbers is a child whose safety was violated, a family that was changed forever, and a survivor who carried the trauma of that abuse for years and, in many cases, decades," Campbell told reporters.
伍斯特教区在一份声明中表示，将研究该报告，“以确定可采取哪些额外改进措施来回应过去的受害者，并继续加强保护儿童安全的努力”。另外两个教区暂未回应置评请求。
The Diocese of Worcester in a statement said it would study the report "to identify any additional improvements that can be made to respond to victims of past abuse and to continue to strengthen efforts to keep children safe." The other two did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
大多数性侵案件发生在2002年之前。那一年，《波士顿环球报》发表了普利策奖获奖报道，揭露天主教波士顿总教区官员如何例行公事般掩盖神父性侵案件，使神职人员性侵丑闻登上国际舞台。
The majority of the abuse occurred before 2002. The clergy sex abuse scandal burst onto the international stage that year when the Boston Globe published its Pulitzer Prize-winning report on how officials at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston routinely covered up sex abuse by priests.
该报报道引发全球调查浪潮，发现全球各教区存在类似模式，并促使马萨诸塞州立法机构于2002年通过了一系列改革法案。
The newspaper's reporting set off a global wave of investigations that found similar patterns at dioceses worldwide and prompted Massachusetts' legislature to pass a series of reforms in 2002.
2019年，时任马萨诸塞州总检察长的莫拉·希利（现任马萨诸塞州州长）对罗马天主教福尔里弗教区、斯普林菲尔德教区和伍斯特教区展开刑事调查，以确定这些教区或其领导层是否应对其对性侵儿童神职人员的监管负责。
In 2019, then-Attorney General Maura Healey, now Massachusetts' governor, launched a criminal probe into the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Fall River, Springfield and Worcester to determine if they or their leadership bore responsibility in connection to their supervision of clergy who abused children.
坎贝尔表示，她本人曾是亲戚性侵的受害者，她称其办公室在调查期间向地方检察官移交了三起案件，其中一起在伍斯特提起了指控。
Campbell, who said she herself was a victim of child abuse at the hands of a relative, said her office made three referrals to local district attorneys during the probe, leading to charges in one case in Worcester.
她表示，由于某些行为在发生时并不违法，或已过追诉时效，她的办公室未提起任何起诉。
Her office did not pursue any prosecutions due to some conduct not being illegal at the time it occurred or because the statute of limitations had expired, she said.
坎贝尔表示，该报告表明教区需要实施改革，州政府也需要出台支持受害者的新法律，包括取消涉及儿童性侵民事索赔的诉讼时效。
Campbell said the report demonstrated the need for the dioceses to institute reforms and for new state laws supporting abuse survivors, including eliminating the statute of limitations for civil claims involving childhood sexual abuse.