Missouri is launching an investigation into potential Catholic Church sex abuse in St. Louis

AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File

Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley announced the investigation on August 23.

• Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley announced the state was launching a probe of potential sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis on Thursday.
• The probe initially covers only the Archdiocese of St. Louis, one of five Roman Catholic dioceses in the state.
• Hawley said the archdiocese is fully cooperating and he has asked the bishops of the four other dioceses to agree to cooperate with the probe.
• Pennsylvania officials last week released the results of a grand jury probe that found at least 1,000 people had been sexually abused by 300 clergymen during the past 70 years.

Missouri is launching a probe of potential sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis, state Attorney General Josh Hawley said on Thursday, following last week's Pennsylvania report finding widespread clergy sex abuse in the state.

Hawley said his office does not have the power to force institutions to cooperate with criminal investigations but was able to launch the probe after the archdiocese agreed to help.

"They say they want to cooperate fully and I'm confident they will," Hawley told reporters on a conference call.

The probe initially covers only the Archdiocese of St. Louis, one of five Roman Catholic dioceses in the state, Hawley said.

He asked the bishops of the four other dioceses to agree to cooperate with the probe.

Hawley said that his office will gather evidence from the church, as well as from victims, their families and people not associated with the archdiocese.

"That report will also include any charging recommendations based on the evidence we discover in our investigation," Hawley said.

The investigation will be led by Christine Krug, the head of the attorney general's public safety division and a longtime sex crimes prosecutor, according to the Kansas City Star.

"I am firmly of the view that full transparency benefits not only the public but also the church and most importantly, it will help us expose and address potential wrongdoing and protect the vulnerable from abuse," Hawley said.

He added: "I would invite the state's other dioceses to cooperate similarly with this office's investigation so that our report can be truly comprehensive and statewide."

Pennsylvania officials last week released the results of a two-year grand jury probe that found evidence that at least 1,000 people, mostly children, had been sexually abused by some 300 clergymen in the state during the past 70 years.

The report covers 70 years of alleged abuse and the lengths that church officials went to cover up the accusations, using what investigators described in the report as a "a playbook for concealing the truth."

The report said the numbers of actual victims and abusers could be much higher.

Similar reports have emerged in Europe, Australia and Chile, prompting lawsuits and investigations, sending dioceses into bankruptcy and undercutting the moral authority of the leadership of the Catholic Church, which has some 1.2 billion members around the world.