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Backing Civil Statute of Limitations Reform Would Be the Best Way Bishops Could Help Child Sexual Abuse Victims [opinion]

Lancaster Online
August 5, 2018

https://lancasteronline.com/opinion/editorials/backing-civil-statute-of-limitations-reform-would-be-the-best/article_ff0da078-9767-11e8-80aa-4bc15a6e7cc7.html

Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg Bishop Ronald W. Gainer addresses clergy sexual abuse at a news conference on Aug. 1, 2018.

Bishop Ronald W. Gainer of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg held a press conference Wednesday to apologize for the sexual abuse of children by priests and others in the church over decades. The Harrisburg diocese also released a list of 71 clergy members and seminarians alleged to have sexually abused children since 1947. LNP reported Friday that the list included the late Monsignor Francis Joseph Taylor, who served as Lancaster Catholic High School’s principal from 1958 to 1975, and the late Rev. Thomas Ronald Haney, who was the assistant to the principal at LCHS from 1961 to 1964 and directed the school’s athletic program. According to LNP records, Haney previously had served three years as assistant pastor at St. Anne Catholic Church in Lancaster; later in his life, he was known to many local Catholics as the executive editor of The Catholic Witness, the diocesan newspaper, and as a spokesman for the diocese.

In April 2014, soon after he was installed as the 11th bishop of the Diocese of Harrisburg, Gainer told LNP that the way the Catholic Church had handled child sexual abuse cases in the past was “a disgrace” and “a wound for our church.”

He was right, of course.

Before he took over the Diocese of Harrisburg, Gainer was criticized by SNAP, or the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, for the way he had handled sexual abuse allegations against two priests while leading the Diocese of Lexington, Kentucky.

Last week, however, Gainer seemed genuinely intent on reversing the church’s past mistakes.

And he made strides toward that aim when, at his press conference and in a column LNP published on Friday’s front page, he expressed his “great sadness at the horror that innocent children were the victims of egregious actions committed against them.”

“In my own name, and in the name of the Diocesan Church of Harrisburg, I express our profound sorrow and apologize to the survivors of child sex abuse, the Catholic faithful and the general public for the abuses that took place and for those church officials who failed to protect children.”

Gainer’s press conference was held amid the looming release of a grand jury investigation report into clergy sexual abuse of children in six of Pennsylvania’s eight Catholic dioceses, including Harrisburg.

That grand jury report will be released sometime this month; it’s been delayed by the foot-dragging of the state Supreme Court.

Removing names

Gainer said the names of every bishop since 1947 — the start date of the scope of the grand jury’s investigation — immediately would be “removed from any building, facility or room in the diocese.” The names of those on the list of 71 alleged abusers also would be stripped from “any place of honor throughout the diocese.”

The exception: Bishop McDevitt High School in Harrisburg, because, Gainer explained, “there are no records of these matters during the tenure of Bishop Philip R. McDevitt,” and the grand jury investigation only covered the period that began 12 years after McDevitt died.

This struck us an exception justified by a technicality. McDevitt’s tenure as bishop extended from 1916 to 1935. It’s hard to believe that in that span there were no cases of priestly abuse. But changing the name of McDevitt High School likely would have incurred the wrath of alumni, as well as significant expense.

Perhaps that was a fight Gainer didn’t want to take on while grappling with larger concerns — such as the fallout among the faithful when they’re faced with what are expected to be the devastating findings of the grand jury investigation.

Inadequate measures

We certainly laud Gainer for acknowledging the mishandling of child sexual abuse allegations by Harrisburg’s bishops and other church leaders over the years.

It was “clear,” he noted, “that the leadership of the church did not in every case take adequate measures when handling matters related to offending clerics.”

That’s an understatement, to be sure. But too many church officials have avoided even saying that.

Gainer’s language — “we willingly acknowledge our sinfulness ... we humbly seek the forgiveness of those who have been wronged” — seemed heartfelt.

But there are words. And there are actions. And stripping names off of rooms and buildings, while an action, does not go nearly far enough to compensate for the harm visited by clergy members on generations of Catholic children.

Redressing the harm

If Bishop Gainer and his fellow Catholic bishops in Pennsylvania genuinely want to redress that harm, they should drop their opposition to reform of the commonwealth’s civil statute of limitations.

A victim of child sexual abuse now has only until his or her 30th birthday to bring a civil suit in Pennsylvania (a criminal case must be brought before a victim’s 50th birthday).

Some Catholics have asked why the Roman Catholic Church is singled out from among the many denominations that have had child sexual abuse crises.

They are correct when they point out that such abuse occurs in other religious organizations, as well as in schools (think Penn State) and other sectors of society.

But the scope of the abuse in the Catholic Church, and the scale of the leadership’s attempts to cover it up, are especially appalling.

Moreover, the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference — the public affairs arm of the bishops and dioceses in this state — has been staunch in its opposition to reforming the civil statute of limitations for child sexual abuse.

Its position, in our view, has placed it on the wrong side of the moral divide. That goes for the Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania, too, the other significant opponent of reform.

Gainer consistently has said that there is no statute of limitations in church law. If an accusation were to be made about a priest abusing a child decades ago, “that would be examined as though it happened yesterday,” he told LNP in 2014.

That is good, but that doesn’t help the many victims of priestly abuse who have been denied the chance to have their say in a court of law.

Statutes of limitations

Experts in child sexual abuse trauma say it can take years, even decades, before victims can acknowledge what was done to them. As Karen Baker, CEO of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, writes in today’s Perspective section, survivors should get “the time they need to report on their own terms — not according to some arbitrary and outdated time limit.”

This is why any reform of the statutes of limitations for child sexual abuse should include a window of time during which past victims could seek justice.

Unfortunately, every time some reform measure advances in the state General Assembly, lobbyists for the Catholic Church spring into action to block it.

They’ve been successful so far. Bishop Gainer and his fellow Pennsylvania bishops ought to call them off. Immediately. The insurance federation might remain a stumbling block, but the bishops would be offering substantive support for victims. And that would go a long way toward healing that “wound” to which Gainer referred in 2014.

Pain of victims

We understand — truly — that last week was a painful one for the many good and decent priests who serve their parishioners, and for the parishioners themselves.

But their pain does not compare to that of victims who, as vulnerable children, were horrifically abused by priests — men in whom they placed their trust, men whom they may have seen as stand-ins for Jesus.

Reforming the statutes of limitations for child sexual abuse may cost the Catholic Church some money. And it may indeed be difficult to prove abuse decades after it was alleged to have occurred.

But most victims simply want to have their pain acknowledged, and some want that acknowledgment in a legal proceeding. Bishop Gainer and his brother bishops ought — at long last — to allow them that.

 

 

 

 

 




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