PENNSYLVANIA
Trib Live
November 8, 2018
By Deb Erdley
In an apparent move to counter calls for new legislation to permit victims of clergy child sexual abuse to sue the Catholic church outside statute of limitations, diocesan officials across Pennsylvania announced they will create accounts to pay victims.
One by one, church leaders from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia on Thursday said each would establish its own victims’ compensation fund to be underwritten by resources of that diocese or archdiocese.
The announcements come in the wake of a bitter fight in the Pennsylvania General Assembly over legislation that would create a two-year window for adults who were sexually abused as children and can no longer seek recourse in the courts to file suit against their abusers and those involved in covering up such acts. The law is among four recommendations from a statewide grand jurythat found rampant clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups by church officials in dioceses across Pennsylvania over the last seven decades.
This fall, the state House approved the bill by a wide margin. But it stalled in the state Senate, where President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson County, proposed victims compensation funds as an alternative plan. The alternative, supported by the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and the insurance industry, would operate outside of the courts.
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