UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism
(by Jerry Slevin, retired Wall Street lawyer)
The petition that went public a couple of days ago on the White House website has been garnering over hundreds of signatures daily since then from all over the USA. The petition asks President Obama to set up a national investigation commission on organizational child sexual abuse that is increasingly occurring in church, synagogue, school and youth organizational situations.
State laws and local officials seem incapable of curtailing these crimes sufficiently. The sexual violence against children often involves organizations operating nationally that protect, and at times even facilitate, the sexual predators. Many of these organizations have significant political and economic clout of over local officials and prosecutors that often improperly precludes local prosecutions of the criminal conduct.
As a grandfather who has been a lawyer (now retired) for over 40 years since graduating from Harvard Law School, it is very clear to me that only a Federal solution can curtail this growing epidemic. That is what the petition seeks.
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