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…