UNITED STATES
Huffington Post
Marci Hamilton
When the Roman Catholic Cardinals gathered for their secret Vatican conclave to choose Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio of Argentina as the new pope, it was impossible not to be reminded of the global sex abuse scandal that has scandalized the church over the past decade. Secrets have long kept child predators in the priesthood in business, and the current process of selecting the spiritual leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics underscores the inherent lack of transparency in the institution.
But at the very same time as the cardinals sat clandestinely in Rome worrying about leaks, survivors of childhood sex abuse and visionary legislators across the country like Marge Markey have been demanding bright sunshine here in the United States.
For the fifth consecutive year, Markey, the Assemblywoman from Queens, NY has introduced the Child Victims Act, a bill that would eliminate the arbitrary civil and criminal statutes of limitation for child sex abuse and offer survivors a one-year window to file suit even if their SOLs have expired. Earlier versions of the bill have passed four times in the General Assembly, but each time it has been blocked by the Senate, seemingly in deference to the Church.
To be sure, American bishops continue to fight to keep their secrets by handsomely paying millions to lobbyists to block child sex abuse SOL reform and lawyers to institute delaying tactics in bankruptcies like the one pending in Milwaukee and other more ordinary lawsuits.
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