More than 270 Catholic clergy members sexually abused nearly 1,000 children across three Massachusetts dioceses over decades, according to an investigative report released yesterday by the attorney general of the US state.

The report by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell was described as the first complete public record of abuse cases and institutional failures that allowed the problem to continue for more than half a century in the Catholic dioceses of Fall River, Springfield and Worcester.

Most of the abuse cases described in detail in the report took place before 2002 — the year the clergy sexual abuse scandal came to international attention following reporting by the Boston Globe, which won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of how officials within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston systematically concealed sexual abuse by priests.

The state attorney general’s investigation documented similar issues that had been occurring for years in these three dioceses in other areas of Massachusetts, which, according to Campbell, knew that children were being abused by priests and other members of the clergy.

“Far too often, they protected the reputation of the Church instead of protecting children,” Campbell said.

The report identifies at least 275 members of the clergy who were accused of abusing 944 children.

“Behind every number is a child whose safety was violated, a family that was changed forever and a survivor who carried the trauma of this abuse for years and, in many cases, decades,” she told reporters.

The Diocese of Worcester said in a statement that it would review the report “to identify any additional improvements that can be made to respond to victims who have suffered abuse and to continue strengthening efforts to keep children safe”.

Fall River Bishop Edgar da Cunha issued a statement apologising to survivors of child sexual abuse, saying that he was “deeply saddened by the incidents and practices of the past, which reflect the tragic failures to protect our most vulnerable members”.

Springfield Bishop William Byrne described the report as a “lesson in humility”. He said that, before its publication, his diocese had been working intensively to address past mistakes by introducing new policies and procedures that take into account the trauma experienced by victims.

The revelations by the Boston Globe in 2002 — later portrayed in the Oscar-winning 2015 film Spotlight — triggered a global wave of investigations. These uncovered similar patterns in dioceses around the world and prompted the Massachusetts legislature to approve a series of reforms.

In 2019, then-Attorney General Maura Healey (now governor of Massachusetts) launched a criminal investigation into the Roman Catholic dioceses of Fall River, Springfield and Worcester to determine whether the dioceses themselves or their leadership bore responsibility for supervising clergy members who had abused children.

Campbell, who said she was herself a victim of abuse by a relative, stated that her office made three referrals of cases to local prosecutors during the investigation, leading to charges being brought in one case in Worcester.

She clarified that her office did not pursue prosecutions in some cases, either because the acts in question were not illegal at the time they occurred or because the statute of limitations had expired.

Campbell stressed that the report highlighted the need for dioceses to proceed with reforms and for new state laws to be introduced to support abuse victims, including the abolition of the statute of limitations for civil claims relating to the sexual abuse of minors.