Victims of Priests’ Abuse Face a Choice

New York Times
October 17, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/opinion/victims-of-priests-abuse-face-a-choice.html?_r=0

If you were sexually abused as a child by a priest of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan wants to give you money. He announced a settlement program this month that will be run by an independent mediator, Kenneth Feinberg. It will review claims and decide on an amount, which church officials will not be able to alter or reject. The settlements will not be capped; the archdiocese has promised to pay whatever it takes, by selling assets or borrowing.

There are strings attached. The program is only for those who have previously filed abuse claims with the archdiocese, and there is a tight deadline to sign up: the end of January. (New claims will be covered by a second phase of the program, whose details are not yet announced.) Participants waive the right to sue, and the program is confidential. Its goal is to attack the problem the way church officials prefer: quietly and out of court.

Should survivors take the deal? It depends. Those who want to try to get on with their lives may find it appealing. They may weigh the promise of prompt payment — within two months, the archdiocese says — against the time, expense, hassle, exposure and uncertainty of going to court, which for many isn’t an option, because of New York’s statute of limitations. They can have confidence in the independence of Mr. Feinberg, who has built a solid reputation running settlement programs after 9/11, the BP oil spill and the Boston Marathon bombing.

But survivors should be aware of the limitations, and mindful of the deadline, which gives them only a few months to act. Mr. Feinberg says settlement programs need strict deadlines, because claimants can be procrastinators. That seems unduly harsh, given the guilt, shame and silence that enshroud sexual abuse. It’s one thing to come forward as a victim of a bombing, quite another to do so as a survivor of a pedophile priest.

And besides, the procrastinator label applies, by his own admission, to Cardinal Dolan himself. He could have offered this program years ago, but he somehow never got around to it. “I wish I would have done this quite a while ago,” he told The Times. “I just finally thought: ‘Darn it, let’s do it. I’m tired of putting it off.’ ”

Cardinal Dolan says he was moved by “mercy” — Pope Francis has declared this a “Jubilee Year of Mercy,” a time to focus on reconciliation and forgiveness.

Mercy? Knowing Cardinal Dolan, more like strategy. As a church official in Milwaukee, he tried to shield millions of dollars in church assets from abuse survivors, and he has led the push to block a bill in Albany that would lift New York’s onerous statute of limitations on sexual-abuse cases. The cardinal’s evocation of mercy can just as easily be seen as an attempt to clean the archdiocese’s abuse caseload and balance sheets against the day that bill, the Child Victims Act, becomes law.

For many survivors, this program could be a good step forward. But it’s fair for them or anyone else to ask: How will this program help to prevent future abuses, to expose archdiocesan cover-ups, to explain how priests were shielded and survivors silenced? How will it hold accountable both the guilty and the complicit?

Survivors may have no interest in tackling those questions, and they should feel no shame if they decide to accept a mediator’s offer. But neither should they be intimidated, if they do participate, into giving up the fight. They can take the money and speak out, joining those who have been pressuring Albany and the archdiocese for transparency, accountability and long-overdue justice.