On Monday, June 16, 2025, partner John Baldante was featured in the New Jersey Law Journal article “Supreme Court Allows Grand Jury Probe of Clergy.” The article discusses the New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision to allow empanelment of the New Jersey Grand Jury to investigate child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, a finding that reverses rulings by a trial court and appeals court.
This decision is revelatory in that it will enable plaintiffs who are suing entities of the Roman Catholic Church over sexual abuse to receive the benefits that they deserve. “The unfortunate truth is that the Roman Catholic Church is the perennial undefeated Super Bowl winner when it comes to child sexual abuse,” Baldante said. “The grand jury report will hopefully disclose what that looked like in New Jersey, so you’ll see it addressed not just with the Diocese of Camden, which was the entity issuing the objection here, but it will also address sexual abuses that took place in all five of the dioceses throughout the state.”
Investigation by the New Jersey Grand Jury will “benefit survivors because it will help disclose the pattern and practice of behavior that took place in the Roman Catholic Church decades ago, and that type of information is potentially admissible in a civil court, to show the environment and culture that existed,” Baldante continued. To read the New Jersey Law Journal article online, please click here. To read a PDF of the article, please click on the following link.