HAWAII
Disappeared News
by Larry Geller
A press conference and protest was held Wednesday outside of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in downtown Honolulu to urge Honolulu Bishop Clarence Silva to obey church directives demanding zero tolerance for child sexual abuse within the clergy.
At issue is the Bishop’s refusal so far to remove an accused predator, named in the lawsuit as Father George DeCosta, who is still an active priest in Hawaii even after two former students filed a lawsuit in state court on March 1 seeking damages.
Accusations against the priest were first raised in August and appeared in a local newspaper on the Big Island.
The alleged victims were able to come forward because of Hawaii’s new civil window law. The law, passed last year, gives victims of child sexual abuse a chance to seek justice in the courts no matter when they were abused. Some other states have passed similar laws, which are necessary because short statutes of limitations would otherwise preclude adults from filing suit for events that occurred when they were much younger.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.