NEW YORK
Times Ledger
By Gabriel Rom
As Pope Francis concluded his historic trip to the United States, he told a group of sexual abuse victims in Philadelphia that “God weeps for the sexual abuse of children.”
For Assemblywoman Margaret Markey (D-Maspeth), who has spent nearly a decade trying to pass a bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations for sex crimes against children, his remarks didn’t go nearly far enough in addressing the church’s role in perpetrating and enabling child abuse.
A Catholic, Markey said that she is deeply concerned with the church’s legacy in America, and had hoped the Pope would spur a moral reckoning within the church hierarchy to help victims find closure and bring them back into the fold.
“Part of the reason church attendance is dwindling,” Markey speculated, “is that they refuse to address the issue of sexual abuse of children. This is an issue that is crying out for attention from voters, too. They want to see justice for victims.”
Markey’s bill would do away with the statute of limitations in New York state for victims of child sex abuse, which currently gives them until the age of 23 to file a civil or criminal claim against their abusers. It would also create a “civil window” to suspend the existing statute of limitations on civil cases for one year, so that those who were victimized before the law was enacted can bring suits against individuals or private institutions involved in past crimes. However, it would not eliminate the criminal statute of limitations for these crimes.
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