Expanding abuse victims’ Pa. rights deserves support

PENNSYLVANIA
Sharon Herald

STATE REP. Mark Rozzi has been pushing for years to change state laws in an effort to broaden the rights of victims of child sex abuse, to little effect.

Part of the problem may have been that the issue had been fading in the public consciousness. The subject was making major headlines around 15 years ago, when a scandal erupted over sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church and the mishandling of such cases by religious leaders, and then more recently with the Jerry Sandusky case involving Penn State. Since then the church has insisted it learned from its mistakes and that the days of protecting predator priests are long over, and changes were made to child abuse laws in response to the Sandusky situation.

But the issue is back at the forefront thanks to an investigation by the state attorney general’s office that alleged terrible…