Baltimore's Catholic Church sexually abused at least 600 children over 60 years: NBC News

Maryland's top prosecutor on Wednesday accused Catholic Church officials in Baltimore of engaging in a yearslong cover-up of the sexual abuse of 600-plus children, some of whom were "preyed upon by multiple abusers over decades," according to an NBC News report.

State Attorney General Anthony Brown chronicled the abuse in a 463-page report that named several priests and described what they are alleged to have done, NBC News reported on Thursday.

"Time and again, members of the Church's hierarchy resolutely refused to acknowledge allegations of child sexual abuse for as long as possible," NBC News said, citing the report.

"When denial became impossible, Church leadership would remove abusers from the parish or school, sometimes with promises that they would have no further contact with children. Church documents reveal with disturbing clarity that the Archdiocese was more concerned with avoiding scandal and negative publicity than it was with protecting children."

In total, the state found, more than "600 children are known to have been abused by the 156 people included in this Report, but the number is likely far higher," said NBC News.

The sexual abuse was so pervasive that it wasn't uncommon for more than one adult to target a young victim, said NBC News, citing the report.

"Young people in some parishes were preyed upon by multiple abusers over decades, and clergy used the power and authority of the ministry to exploit the trust of the children and families in their charge," Brown found.

The findings, which were made public after four years of investigation, illustrated a "depraved, systemic failure of the Archdiocese to protect the most vulnerable - the children it was charged to keep safe," Brown said in a statement, according to NBC News.

"Based on hundreds of thousands of documents and untold stories from hundreds of survivors, it provides, for the first time in the history of this State, a public accounting of more than 60 years of abuse and cover-up," he said, cited by NBC News.