UNITED STATES
Huffington Post
Michael D’Antonio
One can only guess what the pope might be thinking. In Rome, his butler has been arrested in connection with a “Vatileaks” scandal that has revealed venomous internal conflicts over the Church’s finances, child abuse scandals and doctrine. In America, the faithful flock to support their nuns in their fight with Church disciplinarians, while a Philadelphia monsignor accused of endangering children faces heavy jail time in a criminal trial now in its second month. And these problems are not worst of it.
Amid all the more notable intrigue and scandal, a jury in the little city of Appleton, Wis., recently demolished a defense that has shielded the church from hundreds, if not thousands, of claims related to sexual crimes committed by priests against minors. The historic verdict threatens the Church with a new round of sexual abuse lawsuits that could expose it to billions of dollars in liability.
Like countless other victims of clergy abuse, Todd and Troy Merryfield had been unable to sue for damages because a state statute of limitations said too much time had passed between the moment when they knew they had been harmed and their decision to go to court. Noting that fraud stops the statute clock from ticking, their attorney Jeffrey Anderson re-filed the case to claim that higher-ups had defrauded his clients and the public by permitting a criminally flawed man to work as a priest. The way Anderson saw it, bishops who didn’t act swiftly to protect the public from suspect priests were like the Ford Motor Company executives who unleashed fatally flawed Pintos on an unsuspecting public and should be held responsible.
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