UNITED STATES
TIME
October 4, 2018
By Marci A. Hamilton
Hamilton is a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the CEO of CHILD USA.
For those of us who work on issues involving the sexual assault of children, the Judge Brett Kavanaugh sexual-assault discourse has been jarring. This is particularly so given that his first accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, was 15 years old and therefore underage at the time of the allegations. And it is even more so the case because of how it contrasts with what we’ve supposedly learn from the recent revelations about the trauma of clergy sexual abuse.
The recent Pennsylvania grand jury report regarding the sex abuse perpetrated six dioceses over 70 years has yielded unprecedented anger in the United States and abroad. The coverage has been nearly uniformly deferential and supportive of the victims. Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who led the investigation, rightly has been hailed as a hero for survivors, and state lawmakers are now moving forward on meaningful reform of its child sex abuse statutes of limitations to afford justice to the victims whose claims are now barred.
No one has been wringing their hands over the possibility of falsely maligning “good men,” as the details in the report leave no question that the crimes described were harrowing and supported with ample evidence. The foundation of this is the last 16 years of the developing clergy sex abuse story that started with the Boston Globe’s Spotlight report on the cover-up of child sex abuse in the Boston Archdiocese. The public has been educated to come to understand that in fact many priests (about 6%, according to bishopaccountability.org) have abused children, and that bishops concealed the crimes and “solved” the problem by moving the perpetrators from parish to parish. Early on, there was handwringing over the fate of the good priests from politicians, bishops and parishioners. But as time has worn on, it has become increasingly impossible to think that any of the clergy were ignorant of the facts. False claims have not proven to be a significant concern.
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