Should Statutes of Limitations on Sexual Abuse be Extended?
By Beth Griffin11/3/2007
Catholic News Service
The controversial topic of whether the Statutes of Limitations on allegations of sexual abuse should be extended gives rise to a lively debate at the 15th annual meeting of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists.NEW YORK (CNS)
- The church opens itself to charges of hypocrisy when it opposes extending the statute of limitations for bringing clergy sexual abuse claims, according to attorney Charles Molineaux.
He called it an "inversion of episcopal priorities" that places concern for property and the institutional church ahead of concern for souls. Molineaux, an international commercial arbitrator, addressed a panel on the clergy sexual abuse scandal Oct. 27 at the 15th annual meeting of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists at St. John's University School of Law in Queens.
Molineaux is a graduate of the law school. The Oct. 26-27 meeting drew some 450 registrants and featured more than 70 panels with 200 speakers. Among the speakers were Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver; William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights; Stephen Krason of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, who is the society's president; and Father Richard John Neuhaus, editor of First Things.
A statute of limitations is a pragmatic, legislative device to preclude stale claims, said Molineaux. Such statutes limit the length of time in which a suit must be begun before the right to sue is lost. "The usual rationale is that old claims are hard to defend against because of the passage of time, the fading of memories, the disappearance of witnesses and the loss of records," he said. "This argument ignores the reality that the burden of proof is on the plaintiff in any event and that ... it is usually easier to defend than to attack."
In several states, legislatures have proposed revising or eliminating the statute of limitations for civil suits in child sex abuse cases, including Colorado. In a May 2006 article in the journal First Things, Archbishop Chaput wrote that such efforts are prejudicial to the Catholic Church and harmful to the cause of justice.
The archbishop wrote that plaintiffs' attorneys and victims' groups in several states "often work together" to pressure lawmakers to relax the statute of limitations so that old cases can be reopened and new suits demanding huge damages can be filed.
In his speech, Molineaux said there are recognized exceptions for suspending or extending the fixed time in which to bring a lawsuit for an injury, he said. These include delayed discovery of the injury or the minor age or mental incompetence of the person potentially bringing the claim.
Molineaux mentioned repressed memory of sexual abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder as relatively recent arguments for extending the statute of limitation. "Initially, many loyal Catholics were appropriately skeptical in reaction to what seemed yet more psychobabble to prop up lately appreciated actionable facts," he said.
"But there have just been too many verifiable cases which have emerged in different states and dioceses to ignore this development."
If the mission of the church is to lead people to Christ, the institutional church should be more than merely apologetic toward victims of errant churchmen, said Molineaux.
Quoting the Second Vatican Council document "Gaudium et Spes," the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, he said: "The order of things must be subordinate to the order of persons and not the other way around, as the Lord suggested when he said that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath."
Molineaux said that the "crisis has always had two distinct aspects: abuse and cover-up. The abuse aspect involved a tiny percentage of priests; the cover-up aspect involved a majority of bishops.
The overriding policy of the cover-up bishops -- some behaving criminally -- was the protection of the institutional church, its physical assets and the careers of its churchmen."
voor vervolg hier
En Philadelphia. Als dit, 20 jaar na het Doyle-Mouton rapport, 2 jaar na het Grand Juryrapport, waar moge zijn.
Maar wanneer zijn na die gevechten slachtofferorganisaties weer in staat die Kerk te
vertrouwen?Wie heeft die sleutels? Die Kerk(en), de Wetgever, kerkelijke groeperingen als VOTF, de slachtofferorganisaties en -advocaten? Kanonnen als Father Doyle cs?
Zo'n congres van katholieke wetenschappers?
Dit soort bisschoppen en vrouwen, met de notie van belang van die cultuurverandering?
Zolang er nog zulke dubbele belangen zijn, zouden die sleutels nog wel even gebroken kunnen blijven.
Maar het aanbod lijkt revolutionair, de aanpak is het in ieder geval.
Moge het heel goed nieuws blijken te zijn.
Help for victims of abuse
By David O'Reilly
Inquirer Staff Writer
After decades of hiding its clergy sex-abuse problems, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia says it is aggressively encouraging abuse survivors to seek its assistance.
"We've gone from [simply] making a report to asking: 'Who are you? What are your needs? How can we help?' " said Mary Achilles, victims' advocate for the archdiocese.
The changes, a strictly local effort, are outlined in a new brochure sent to every registered Catholic household in the five counties covered by the archdiocese, she said.
The three-page foldout, "Enhanced Efforts to Assist Victims of Clergy Sexual Abuse," includes a letter from Cardinal Justin Rigali and describes the archdiocese's efforts to reach out to victims and meet their psychological and financial needs.
Victims of clergy sex abuse, their families, and public-policy advocates contacted for this article said they thought the archdiocese had improved its outreach, but complained that it was working to bar them from winning a right to sue their assailants.
Achilles said the archdiocese was working with 95 victims, and predicted it would spend more than $1 million on their care in 2007.
The improved outreach springs in part, she said, from a 2005 Philadelphia grand-jury investigation that revealed extensive sexual assaults by priests in the archdiocese - mostly in the 1970s and 1980s - and a broad pattern of concealment by the local hierarchy.
"Our response to victims in the past was wrong," Achilles said in an interview. "We are in a new phase of 'bishops forward, lawyers back.' "
John Salveson, president of a locally based lobbying group advocating for changes in sex-abuse laws, said he did not challenge the archdiocese's assertion that it had improved its outreach. "I suppose they have," he said.
But Salveson, who was abused in the Diocese of Rockville Centre, N.Y., said he was skeptical of the archdiocese's motives and the timing of the brochure.
He noted that the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office and his Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse Inc. were lobbying the state legislature for a change in the civil statute of limitations that would allow adult victims of child sex abuse to sue their assailants, even for abuse long ago.
Of the brochure, Salveson said: "I think this is a document they are hoping can stop us - something to show lawmakers so they can say, 'Look how great we're doing.' "
Civil suits can "expose perpetrators who have escaped detection because of the statute of limitation," he wrote in a subsequent e-mail.
In past decades, victims of sexual assault in Pennsylvania had as little as two years to file criminal or civil charges, regardless of their age. Now sexually assaulted minors have until age 30 to bring charges, but victims of past assaults may bring charges only within the time frame in effect at the time.
Four bills seeking to expand the time in which abuse victims may sue are in House and Senate committees. One would extend the age for filing civil suits to age 50.
Three bills call for suspending the civil statute of limitations in sex-abuse cases for one or two years, during which adults who were assaulted as children could sue their assailants.
In 2003, California allowed adult victims such a one-year "window." In July, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay $660 million to settle 508 claims of abuse by clergy, some dating from the 1940s. Last month, the Diocese of San Diego agreed to pay $198 million to settle 144 abuse claims.
In July, Delaware granted adult victims of sexual abuse a two-year window to sue.
It's no secret that the Philadelphia Archdiocese opposes efforts to allow lawsuits in old abuse cases, said Donna Farrell, archdiocese spokeswoman.
"People die. It's very difficult to remember situations clearly. Files don't exist," she said. "Those are all the reasons there are statutes of limitations."
She also said the archdiocese was studying the feasibility of a capital campaign, but had not decided whether to proceed.
Achilles denied the brochure was timed to woo donors or sway lawmakers. Rather, she said, it was a progress report to the Catholic laity.
"I think the church was really wrong in the past" in how it handled victims and perpetrators, she said. "I just say to them, 'Let's do these things because they're the right thing to do.' "
Rigali hired Achilles as a consultant in January 2006. A former victims' advocate for the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office and the state, she came on board four months after the grand jury reported an "immoral cover-up" by archdiocesan leaders.
That report concluded that at least 63 priests, and as many as 100 more, abused hundreds of youngsters over five decades. Rigali, who became archbishop here four years ago, was not implicated in the cover-up.
Achilles said she had spent the last 22 months helping Rigali change the culture of the archdiocese's approach to known abuse victims, all now adults.
"The changes reflect the recognition that victims are not at fault, and that we are committed to assisting them in any way for as long as they have need," Rigali wrote in the brochure.
Achilles said the archdiocese's Office of Child and Youth Protection had received "more than a few" phone calls in response to the brochure from victims previously unknown to the archdiocese. She declined to say how many.
Among the recent policy changes, Achilles noted, are that victims' therapists no longer have to file periodic "progress reports" to the archdiocese for reimbursement, and the archdiocese reimburses for previous counseling paid out of pocket.
The archdiocese does not require abuse victims to sign any agreements stating they will not sue it in exchange for services, Achilles said.
The archdiocese has also sent letters advising all alumni of two of its high schools of abuse allegations there, and offering assistance to victims who have not yet come forward.
Relatives of abuse victims who have recently availed themselves of the archdiocese's outreach services gave mixed reviews.
Several, who asked that their names or their children's names not be used, described the program as "helpful" and the staff sympathetic. But they complained that most of the services had become available only after they demanded them, and said they did not feel the office was "proactive" enough in guiding victims' recovery.
"The people in the victims' office were very nice," said David Eyes, 31, who was abused by a priest while in his early teens, but added that he still found it painful to "beg from the people who hurt you the most."
For InformationA copy of the brochure is available on the archdiocesan Web site at www.archphila.org. The phone number for the Office of Child and Youth Protection is 1-888-800-8780. Its e-mail address is philavac@adphila.org.
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