NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger
By Star-Ledger Editorial Board
on November 05, 2013
The Catholic Church has a troubling track record of tucking its problems out of sight. It’s common for priests accused of molesting children to be shuffled to new parishes, allowing church leaders to ignore them.
The latest example: The Star-Ledger’s Mark Mueller reported Sunday that a number of priests — including some stripped of robes and collars after the church found accusations of abuse to be credible — were sent to a retirement home in Rutherford, right next to two Catholic schools. That follows other reports of accused priests who chaperoned youth retreats or taught in parish schools, each under the supposed supervision of church hierarchy.
Those are the acts of an organization and leadership that believe they are immune from consequences.
Were it not for expired statutes of limitations — which often ran out before young victims could report their abusers to authorities or even understand the full consequences of those attacks — many of these men might have faced prison, not retirement. That escape hatch closed in 1996, when New Jersey eliminated the time limit for criminal charges.
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