WASHINGTON (DC)
The Atlantic
September 25, 2018
By Sigal Samuel
The Church is offering to pay people who can credibly say they were abused as children, but who can no longer file a lawsuit because the statute of limitations has passed.
The Catholic Church’s sex-abuse scandal has reached such a fever pitch that its top officials are now compelled to act. Last week, Pope Francis expelled a priest and accepted the resignation of two bishops, all of whom were accused of abuse in Chile. U.S. bishops promised to set up a hotline to field complaints about abusive religious leaders. In Pennsylvania, where a grand-jury report recently alleged 1,000 children were abused by clergy over a 70-year period, bishops announced they would support a fund to compensate victims.
This last move—variously referred to as reparation, compensation, or retribution—may seem like a refreshingly concrete bit of help for the victims. The Church is offering to pay people who can credibly say they were abused as youth but who can no longer file a lawsuit because the statute of limitations has passed. (The statute varies by state; in Pennsylvania, for example, a victim has until age 30 to file a civil suit pertaining to abuse he or she experienced as a minor.) The Pennsylvania bishops are offering to pay victims directly, through a simple arbitration process that they say will go more quickly than a court trial might. “We recognize our responsibility to provide an opportunity for sexual abuse survivors whose cases are time-barred from pursuing civil claims to share their experiences, identify their abusers, and receive compensation to assist their healing and recovery,” the bishops said in a statement.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.