PENNSYLVANIA
National Catholic Reporter
Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans | Jul. 19, 2016
PHILADELPHIA
Berks County lawmaker Mark Rozzi, flanked by sex abuse survivors and victim-rights advocates on the pavement outside the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul here on Monday, July 18, was steaming mad.
Rozzi had attempted to shepherd a bill through the legislature that would revamp the state’s sex abuse laws, allowing victims to pursue legal claims for decades-old abuses against private institutions. Though it passed the Pennsylvania State House, the statute of limitations retroactivity was strongly opposed by church officials including the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, and was eliminated from the bill that eventually passed the Senate.
Earlier this month, Brian Gergely, a victim of one of the Altoona-Johnstown diocese’s most infamous clergy predators, the late Msgr. Francis McCaa, took his own life.
Rozzi, who is also a sex abuse survivor, tossed the grand jury reports from Philadelphia and the Altoona-Johnstown diocese on the steps of the Cathedral, laying the blame for the provision’s failure directly at the feet of Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput.
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