The document is remarkable for its humanity.

That may sound strange to you. After all, it was a two-year grand jury investigation into the widespread sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania.

Consider how it begins: “We, the members of this grand jury, need you to hear this.”

It is a plea for help.

It is a call to action for all of us.

It should not be ignored.

“We know some of you have heard some of it before,” the report continues. “There have been other reports about child sex abuse within the Catholic Church. But never on this scale. For many of us, those earlier stories happened someplace else, someplace away. Now we know the truth: It happened everywhere.”

Consider that conclusion.

Our community should know that better than most, because we know it happened here as well.

The story sounds like something you have heard before, and you may want to look away, but you should not. The Pennsylvania report contains the profiles of more than 300 clergy members charged with abuse. Sixteen years earlier, the Boston Globe identified 150 to 250 priests in Boston.

But this is not old news. Rather, this is an attempt to confront the past, the misdeeds of the church leadership and bring justice to the victims once and for all. That has still not been done.

“We have been exposed to, buried in, unspeakable crimes committed against countless children,” the authors write. “Now we need something to show for it. Courtesy of the long years of cover-up, we can’t charge most of the culprits. What we can do is tell our fellow citizens what happened and try to get something done about it.”

So I ask you to listen as well, whether you are Catholic or atheist, to consider the atrocities committed and how they were covered up by senior church officials, and if you are equally outraged, demand change from our leaders in the state Legislature.

The grand jury identified over 1,000 child victims from over 500,000 documents subpoenaed from the church. They believe the actual number is thousands more.

“We are sick over all the crimes that will go unpunished and uncompensated,” the grand jurors wrote. “This report is our only recourse. We are going to name their names, and describe what they did — both the sex offenders and those who concealed them. We are going to shine a light on their conduct, because this is what the victims deserve.”

The investigation found a distinct pattern among diocesan leaders across the state, “not to help children, but to avoid scandal.”

Those exact words appear over and over in church documents.

Abuse complaints were kept locked up in a “secret archive” as stipulated in the church “Code of Canon Law.” Only the bishop was allowed a key.

Special agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation identified a series of practices the grand jurors called “a playbook for concealing the truth.”

The grand jurors concluded this: “Despite some institutional reform, individual leaders of the church have largely escaped public accountability. Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing, they hid it all. For decades. Monsignors, auxiliary bishops, bishops, archbishops, cardinals have mostly been protected; many including some named in this report have been promoted. Until that changes, we think it is too early to close the book on the Catholic Church sex scandal.”

The investigations found that the victims were “brushed aside, in every part of the state, by church leaders who preferred to protect the abusers and their institutions above all.”

And when Pope Francis spoke out on Monday, he provided no course of action going forward.

The grand jury could only bring charges against two priests because of the statute of limitations, but other investigations continue.

You should download the Pennsylvania report because it happened “everywhere.”

You should read the 12-page introduction and the seven pages of recommended changes. There are hundreds of pages of documents chronicling acts too horrendous and too numerous to include here.

They are reaching out, not as grand jurors charged with prosecuting crimes, but as human beings needing to fix the system and find a way to protect children while getting peace of mind for the abused.

“Grand jurors are just regular people who are randomly selected for service,” the grand jurors wrote. “We don’t get paid much, the hours are bad, and the work can be heartbreaking. What makes it worthwhile is knowing we can do some kind of justice. We spent 24 months dredging up the most depraved behavior, only to find that the laws protect most of its perpetrators, and leave its victims with nothing. We say that laws that do that need to change.”

That’s why New York needs to pass the Child Victims Act.

That’s why you should contact your state representative immediately.

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Ken Tingley is managing editor of the Post-Star of Glens Falls.