New Jersey bishop says diocese will drop fight against state’s grand jury abuse probe

CNA Staff, May 7, 2025 / 12:25 pm (CNA).

The Diocese of Camden, New Jersey, said this week that it will drop its fight against the state’s efforts to empanel a grand jury to investigate clergy abuse allegations.

Camden Bishop Joseph Williams earlier this month said he intended to “do the right thing” for abuse victims in the diocese, which has been embroiled in a yearslong fight with the state of New Jersey over whether the government can empanel a grand jury to investigate allegations of abuse by priests and other Church officials.

The New Jersey Supreme Court heard arguments from both the diocese and the state last month on the matter. But in a Monday letter to the high court, Trenton-based law firm Cooper Levenson said that, per Williams, the diocese “will not object to the empanelment of a grand jury” any further.

The bishop made the decision “in consultation with the diocese’s board of trustees, college of consultors, and finance council,” the letter said.

In a letter to the diocese this week, Williams — who became bishop of the diocese on March 17 — told the faithful that diocesan leaders told the state attorney general’s office that they wished to be “partners with them in this public service.”

“[T]he most important goal of this legal change of direction was to show our sensitivity to the survivors of abuse” and help restore their faith, Williams wrote.

“I will remain committed to that goal in the months and years ahead,” he said. He further praised the work done previously by the diocese and Bishop Dennis Sullivan to implement “the best nationally recognized safe environment recommendations” in the Camden Diocese.

“Implementing these protocols can be hard — sometimes exhausting — work, but our children are worth it, the pain the survivors have experienced demands it, and the credibility of the Church we love and Christ died for urges us on,” the bishop wrote.

The diocese further expressed “concern that the due process rights of any accused members of the clergy be protected” over the course of the grand jury inquiry.

The Diocese of Camden had previously argued that New Jersey “cannot convene a grand jury to return a presentment unless it addresses public affairs or conditions, censures public officials, or calls attention to imminent conditions.”

Instances of “clergy sexual abuse that is alleged to have taken place decades ago” do not fall under that purview, the diocese argued before dropping its opposition.

The New Jersey government moved to convene the grand jury there after the bombshell 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report found allegations of decades of clergy sexual abuse in the latter state.