A comprehensive child sexual abuse investigation by Maryland law enforcement has uncovered nearly 150 Roman Catholic priests in Baltimore as predators. The shocking inquiry revealed that over the past 80 years, these unholy figures victimized more than 600 minors, while church leaders concealed the heinous crimes.

State Attorney General Anthony G. Brown stated that his office's four-year-long report "illustrates the depraved, systemic failure of the archdiocese to protect the most vulnerable." Brown accuses the church of repeatedly "choosing to safeguard the institution" by hiding allegations against many of the 146 accused priests, rather than alerting law enforcement and protecting the children.

National ENQUIRER readers may recall that Maryland's predator priests were named in a 2020 ten-part series that exposed sex offender clerics across the country and detailed their crimes.

In one shocking case, Father John Hammer was permitted to work for the archdiocese later in his career after completing treatment for sex addiction and pedophilia. Despite being dismissed from Ohio's Youngstown Diocese in 1985, Rev. Hammer was admitted to the Saginaw Diocese in Michigan in 1990.

One victim alleged that the priest repeatedly abused him between 1980 and 1983 when Hammer was an assistant pastor at St. Louis Church near Canton, Ohio. The abuse reportedly began when the victim was just 12 years old. In 2002, while serving as a pastor of two Michigan parishes, Rev. Hammer publicly confessed, "What I did was wrong, sinful and hurtful. I am truly sorry for what I did. I am sorry for the hurt that I caused anyone back then and how I am hurting you now by sharing my story."

Michael McDonnell of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests expressed that he is "hardly surprised" by the cover-up allegations, given prior evidence of church officials concealing sex crimes. McDonnell asserts, "The AG investigations demonstrate the diocese knew so much more about abuse within its ranks and chose to do nothing — except extend the careers of those alleged perpetrators."

He adds, "Had the diocese shown care for the sheep instead of protecting the abusive shepherds, so many would have been spared decades of horrific pain."