Harrisburg Bishop Slated to Talk about Grand Jury Probe on Clergy Sex Abuse during Town Hall Style Meetings
By Ivey DeJesus
Billing them as “listening sessions,” the Harrisburg Diocese has announced that Bishop Ronald Gainer early this year will hold town hall style meetings to address a host of topics, chief among them the 2018 grand jury report on clergy sex abuse. Gainer also plans to address the diocese’s response to abuse and its “path forward.” Janet McNeal, who was recently appointed to oversee the diocese’s youth protection program will also participate in the meetings. McNeal is a retired Pennsylvania State Police captain. The listening sessions will be held in January and February of 2019. The Harrisburg Diocese is expected to launch in coming weeks a fund that will financially compensate victims of clergy sex abuse. Harrisburg’s program will operate independently of other dioceses, and will be overseen by attorney Kenneth Feinberg, who administered the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund as well as a similar compensation fund for the Archdiocese of New York. The Harrisburg Diocese last year was one of six Catholic dioceses at the center of a grand jury investigation led by Attorney General Josh Shapiro. State investigators unearthed widespread clergy sex abuse across the dioceses, and spanning some seven decades. Thousands of children were over the decades sexually molested by priests, even as bishops and church officials turned a blind eye to the crimes. Under a court order issued in December, the identity of Catholic priests whose names were redacted from the scathing report on clergy sex abuse will remain protected by that redaction. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that redaction was the only viable due process remedy that could be extended to the petitioners - the priests - to protect their constitutional rights to reputation. Eleven priests - out of the more than 300 priests identified in the report from the 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury - had petitioned the court to keep their names blacked out of the report as revealing their names would violate their constitutional rights. Victims and victims advocates this year pressured lawmakers to reform the statute of limitations, specifically to install a retroactive window for victims timed out of the legal system. Those efforts largely failed in the Legislature. Advocates pledge to revive those efforts in the new legislative session. Meanwhile, the federal government is conducting its own investigation into the sexual abuse of minors by priests. Victims widely say that the idea of a compensation fund program alone will not be sufficient to help them heal without the ability to seek legal recourse through a retroactive statute of limitation. The Pennsylvania grand jury investigation last year spawned a number of other similar states probes into the Catholic Church. As many as 20 local, state or federal investigations, either criminal or civil, have been launched since the release of the grand jury findings, the Associated Press is reporting. Over the past four months, Roman Catholic dioceses across the U.S. have released the names of more than 1,000 priests and others accused of sexually abusing children. Nearly 50 dioceses and religious orders have publicly identified child-molesting priests in the wake of the Pennsylvania report issued in mid-August, and 55 more have announced plans to do the same over the next few months, the AP found. Together they account for more than half of the nation’s 187 dioceses. The first listening session scheduled by the Harrisburg Diocese will take place at 7 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 10 at Saint Catherine Laboure Parish; 4000 Derry Street, Harrisburg. A full listing of the scheduled meetings are found on the diocese’s website.
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