Will new revelations in Catholic church scandal be too old to prosecute?

By John Woolfolk
Mercury News
May 13, 2019

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/05/13/will-new-revelations-in-church-scandal-be-too-old-to-prosecute/

The Diocese of Monterey’s Report of Credible Allegations has come up short according to two organizations that keep an eye on priest sexual abuse cases. Photo by James Herrera

The California Attorney General’s recent inquiry into how the state’s Roman Catholic dioceses complied with laws requiring them to report child sex abuse threatens new legal woes for a church still struggling to confront its sex abuse scandal.

But experts warn, if Pennsylvania’s groundbreaking grand jury report on church abuse is any guide, new revelations from the California probe may be too old to bring criminal charges.

The Pennsylvania investigation revealed decades of abuse and cover-up involving more than 1,000 children and more than 300 priests. Only two priests were charged, with grand jurors noting that “almost every instance of abuse we found is too old to be prosecuted.”

But more than a dozen new lawsuits followed, including two federal class-actions against the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

California’s 12 dioceses now face a similar inquiry and have indicated they will comply with the Attorney General’s request May 9 to preserve or turn over files and records of clergy sex abuse and church reporting of accusations to authorities.

The letters marked the first indication that state law enforcement is taking a harder look at the church’s handling of abuse claims in the Golden State, something victims have clamored for since Pennsylvania authorities’ explosive report in August.

“There will be more unearthing of these long-held secrets,” said Jeff Anderson, a lawyer representing abuse victims in a lawsuit against the states’ dioceses. “I think there will be charges, and if there isn’t, the only reason is the statute of limitations. But I have some confidence there will be a lot of evidence of a lot of crimes committed past and present.”

The new California probe could lead to more lawsuits and legislation, even if it doesn’t end in widespread criminal charges because the cases are too old to prosecute, victim advocates say.

Steve Pehanich, a spokesman for the California Catholic Conference, which represents the California Catholic Conference of Bishops in public policy, said the dioceses welcome the attorney general’s audit of their compliance with the child abuse reporting law. Staff at churches, schools and other organizations working with children are legally obligated to report suspected child abuse to authorities. A bill approved last year extended the statute of limitations on the misdemeanor violation from one year to five.

Following revelations in 2002 of widespread priest abuse in the Boston area, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted a Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People to confront the scandal. Known as the Dallas Charter, it included background checks for church personnel working with children and training on laws requiring child abuse reporting to authorities.

“Since 2002, the church has had all these mandatory reporting requirements, and they are constantly trained on it,” said Pehanich. He noted that the dioceses haven’t objected to the attorney general’s request.

“It’s a review by the attorney general, and if they want to do that, that’s fine,” Pehanich said. “I haven’t heard of any dioceses that said they won’t cooperate.”

Since the Pennsylvania report, a number of California dioceses including San Jose and Oakland have published reports naming priests credibly accused of child abuse within their jurisdictions and invited internal investigations of their handling of those matters to reassure their faithful. The abuse was mostly decades old, much of it already revealed through lawsuits and news reports.

But victims and their advocates have said those moves still fell short. They accuse bishops of setting too narrow a bar for disclosure, leaving out names of other credibly accused clergy, and called on Attorney General Xavier Becerra to step in with a statewide investigation.

Becerra’s office has not said whether it has convened a grand jury or launched a probe like Pennsylvania’s. But the attorney general has reached out to abuse victims, and the letters to the various dioceses are the first indication of a statewide inquiry into their handling of abuse claims.

“What happened in Pennsylvania happens in every parish in the U.S.,” said Tim Lennon, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. “So I applaud the attorney general of California. I’m hoping this leads to a statewide investigation equivalent to what’s been done in Pennsylvania.”

A number of other states, including Illinois and Michigan, have undertaken similar statewide probes.

Northern California SNAP representative Melanie Sakoda said the attorney general is likely to expose overall patterns of behavior within the church in handling abuse claims, as was the case in Pennsylvania.

“Cases that are still prosecutable, both child sex abuse and mandatory reporting violations, are likely to be rare, although if they are uncovered, they will be pursued,” Sakoda said.

But even if a statewide investigation does not reveal abuse recent enough to be prosecuted or subject to civil litigation, it could spur approval of legislation that would loosen the statute of limitations on claims.

Former Gov. Jerry Brown had vetoed such legislation. However, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, has reintroduced a bill that would give victims more time to sue over past sexual assault and hopes Gov. Gavin Newsom will approve.

Under current California law, victims must file a lawsuit by age 26 or within three years of the date they discover “or reasonably should have discovered” they were harmed from the assault. Assembly Bill 218 would let them file a lawsuit up to age 40 or within five years of discovering they suffered damages from the abuse. It also would allow triple damages if there was evidence of a cover-up. It passed out of the Assembly and awaits a Senate committee hearing.

Schools, insurers, civil libertarians and other critics argue the accused may be unable to round up witnesses and records in their defense for decades-old claims.

But Gonzalez said revelations of decades-old abuse in various institutions, from youth sports to schools and churches, show more needs to be done to hold abusers accountable.

“I approach this from a position being Catholic and the fact that my kids and the next generation of kids has been so turned off to the church,” Gonzalez said. “If we want to have a church that’s really welcoming to children in the future we have to attack this very aggressively.”