HARRISBURG (PA)
Penn Live
August 1, 2018
By Wallace McKelvey
The Diocese of Harrisburg’s decision to release a list of 71 priests accused of child sex crimes, which may be a partial accounting, was a good start but further reforms are needed within the Catholic Church and the state at large, state Rep. Mark Rozzi said Wednesday.
“One thing I know about predators is they don’t stop abusing children–they look for their next victim,” said Rozzi, a Berks County Democrat who was raped by a Catholic priest at 13 years old. “Those predator priests are still out there and they could still be abusing your child.”
Rozzi has fought to reform the state’s child sex crimes statutes. He’s introduced legislation that would expand the statute of limitations in order to give past and future victims greater legal recourse against predators.
“We want the parents of our community to know that, for full transparency, the church needs to release the full list of names,” he said, during an interview in the Capitol Rotunda.
Of the 71 names released on Wednesday, 37 were priests of the Diocese of Harrisburg, three were deacons of the diocese, six were seminarians, nine were priests from other dioceses, and 16 were from religious communities. None of the individuals on the list are currently in ministry or in service in the diocese.
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