PENNSYLVANIA
WITF
November 9, 2018
By Katie Meyer
Seven of Pennsylvania’s eight Catholic dioceses have announced plans to create funds to compensate those abused by priests as children, for whom the statute of limitations has expired.
Some victim advocates said the funds are welcome; others said they give churches an easy out. But both camps agree, this shouldn’t be the end of the reforms.
The announcement of the funds came a few months after a landmark grand jury report documented decades of alleged child sexual abuse by clergy. It included a number of recommendations for dioceses and state lawmakers to fix longstanding problems that led to abuse going unreported.
One of those recommendations was a two-year window for retroactive lawsuits on old, statute-limited abuse cases against negligent institutions. In a bitter legislative battle, top lawmakers balked at passing a bill to create such a window.
They floated compensation funds as part of a replacement proposal. But the whole effort ultimately crashed.
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