A decade is too long to wait
Six months ago, an explosive state grand jury report detailing decades of alleged abuse at the hands of Catholic priests in several Pennsylvania dioceses was released.
It dominated headlines for weeks as countless dedicated Catholics mentally digested the difficult-to-hear details, perhaps learning priests they viewed as shepherds of their faith had been accused of heinous acts.
The public backlash over the 900-page report that accused 300 priests of child sexual abuse was swift.
Grand jurors who listened to testimony and pored church records that detailed ignorance and cover ups recommended changes. They asked for our legislature to consider revamping laws so that such widespread abuse does not go unpunished in the future.
The jurors made four recommendations: elimination of the statute of limitation for prosecuting sexual abuse of children; clarifying penalties for failing to report child abuse; specifying that civil confidentiality agreements don’t bar a victim from speaking to the police; and creating a special two-year window so that older victims of abuse can now sue for damages.
The introduction of bills was swift after the report was released.
Nothing happened, and nothing continues to happen.
Legislative proposals to set a two-year window for sex abuse survivors to sue collapsed in October. Several of the six dioceses involved in the report have set up victim compensation funds, but some victims say that’s not enough for them.
They want their day in court.
New York legislators, most recently, passed the Child Victims Act – legislation a decade in the making. It created a one-year window to sue for those victims who are beyond the statute of limitations, and it extended the age limit for seeking both civil and criminal penalties for victims.
According to news reports, New York’s Catholic churches dropped an objection to the civil window until the act was revised to treat public and private schools and other organizations that work with children the same.
It’s an inclusion that makes sense.
The life-shattering impact of childhood sexual abuse exists, period, no matter who the perpetrator is.
While it is currently in the news, the Catholic Church should not be unfairly targeted for suit when there are other victims of childhood sexual assault who have also gone beyond the statute of limitations to seek a civil penalty.
They, too, have suffered a trauma with which they may only be coming to grips as adults.
It’s difficult to stomach that partisanship, it seems, stymied New York’s legislature from acting in a quicker manner.
While there are many things politicians disagree about, offering broader protections and helping victims seek justice should not be a cause divided by party.
Our state representatives and state senators need to get to work. They need to set aside politics, and if they haven’t, they need to read the grand jury report that is the impetus for this push.
And then, they simply must act.