but F*ck!

Bishops and others in the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania covered up child sexual abuse by more than 300 priests over 70 years, according to a report issued by a grand jury on Tuesday.

Six of the state’s eight Catholic dioceses shepherded 1,000 identifiable victims.

The report said there are likely thousands more victims whose records were lost.

A priest raped a young girl in the hospital after she had her tonsils out; a victim tied up and whipped with leather straps by a priest; and another priest who was allowed to stay in ministry after impregnating a young girl and arranging for her to have an abortion – all in the service of the virgin mother.

The sex abuse scandals have shaken the Roman Church for more than 15 years, ever since the Spotlight story emerged in Boston. But even after paying billions of dollars in settlements, the church has been dogged by scandals that are now reaching its highest ranks.

The Pennsylvania report comes soon after the resignation of Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, who is accused of sexually abusing young priests and seminarians, as well as minors.

“Despite some institutional reform, individual leaders of the church have largely escaped public accountability,” the grand jury wrote. “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades.”

One bishop named in the report as vouching for an abusive priest was Cardinal Donald Wuerl, now the archbishop of Washington. “Until that changes, we think it is too early to close the book on the Catholic Church sex scandal,” the jury wrote.

The report is unlikely to lead to new criminal charges because the statute of limitations has expired.

In statements released on Tuesday, Pennsylvania’s Catholic bishops called for prayers for victims and for the church.

Church officials followed a “playbook for concealing the truth,” the grand jury said, minimizing the abuse by using words like “inappropriate contact” instead of “rape”; assigning priests untrained in sexual abuse cases to investigate their colleagues; and not informing the community.

“Tell his parishioners that he is on ‘sick leave,’ or suffering from ‘nervous exhaustion.’ Or say nothing at all,” the report said.

Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a news conference, “They protected their institution at all costs. As the grand jury found, the church showed a complete disdain for victims.”

He said that the cover-up by senior church officials “stretched in some cases all the way up to the Vatican.”

Pennsylvania, where about one of every four residents is Catholic, has been particularly responsive to victims. Previous grand juries examined the dioceses of Philadelphia and Altoona-Johnstown; the new report covers the rest of the state.

Some victims said in interviews that they were relieved to finally be heard and to have their perpetrators publicly named.

Frances Samber, whose brother Michael was abused by a priest in Pittsburgh and committed suicide in 2010, said, “It’s good that the public sees this, but where is the justice? What do you do about it? Why aren’t these [perverts] in prison?”

There has been no comprehensive measurement of the full scope of child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church (and other denominations) in the United States. American abuse survivors have pushed for the government to undertake a nationwide inquiry similar to the one conducted in Australia, where a royal commission spent four years examining the sexual abuse of children by a variety of religious and civic institutions, including the Roman Church.