{"id":80233,"date":"2018-08-16T15:14:57","date_gmt":"2018-08-16T22:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=80233"},"modified":"2018-08-16T15:14:57","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T22:14:57","slug":"pennsylvania-is-trying-to-loosen-sex-abuse-laws-after-scathing-report-on-300-catholic-priests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/08\/16\/pennsylvania-is-trying-to-loosen-sex-abuse-laws-after-scathing-report-on-300-catholic-priests\/","title":{"rendered":"PENNSYLVANIA IS TRYING TO LOOSEN SEX ABUSE LAWS AFTER SCATHING REPORT ON 300 CATHOLIC PRIESTS"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Carter Sherman<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Courtesy Vice News<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
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One Catholic priest raped a 7-year-old girl while she was in the hospital after getting her tonsils out, then raped her again when she was 13. Another raped an altar boy hundreds of times, reportedly telling him, This is what all good altar boys do.\u201d Yet another regularly raped five sisters within the same family.<\/p>\n

None of those priests \u2014 all of whom are named in a\u00a0stomach-turning report<\/a>issued Tuesday by a Pennsylvania grand jury on sex abuse in six of the state\u2019s eight Catholic dioceses \u2014 will likely be prosecuted or even be held civilly liable. The crimes took place decades ago, and in Pennsylvania, victims of child sex abuse only have until their 50th birthday to file criminal charges and until their 30th birthday to file civil lawsuits.<\/p>\n

We heard from plenty of victims who are now in their 50s, 60s, 70s, and even
\none who was 83 years old,\u201d the grand jury wrote in its 1,300-page-plus report, which represents the most extensive government look at sex abuse in the U.S. Catholic Church and what the grand jury called its playbook for concealing the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

We want future victims to know they will always have the force of the criminal law behind them, no matter how long they live,\u201d the grand jury continued in the report. And we want future child predators to know they should always be looking over their shoulder \u2014 no matter how long they live.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Pennsylvania state lawmakers are set to consider whether to grant the grand jury\u2019s request. Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Dave Reed said that the House will now vote on a proposal to eliminate the state\u2019s statute of limitations for cases that may involve child sexual abuse. Under the bill, people who were abused as children could prosecute their attackers at any age and sue them up until their 50th birthday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The crimes reported by the grand jury are horrendous, and the cover-up, even worse. The days of protecting abusers must end,\u201d Reed wrote in a\u00a0statement posted to his website Tuesday<\/a>. It is time for all of us as policymakers, but more importantly, as humans, to stand up against the betrayals of the most vulnerable among us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state Senate already passed the bill unanimously in February 2017, but it stalled out in a House committee four months later.<\/p>\n

The proposal would not include the creation of a civil window,\u201d which give victims time to retroactively file civil cases against their abusers, regardless of when the crime happened or how old they are now. Such windows are particularly important, advocates say, given that Supreme Court precedent bars prosecution if a statute of limitation has already passed \u2014 even if that statute of limitation is later lengthened.<\/p>\n

At the time of most of the crimes described in the grand jury report, Pennsylvania gave childhood sex abuse victims just two years to file civil lawsuits, and five to pursue criminal prosecutions. That means that, right now, the 7-year-old girl raped by her priest, as detailed in the report, probably cannot pursue either criminal prosecution or civil litigation. It\u2019s likely that most of the victims in the report can’t.<\/p>\n

The grand jury called on lawmakers to create a two-year civil window for the more than 1,000 people whose sexual abuse is detailed in their report.<\/p>\n

These victims ran out of time to sue before they even knew they had a case; the church was still successfully hiding its complicity,\u201d they wrote. Our proposal would open a limited \u2018window\u2019 offering them a chance, finally, to be heard in court. All we’re asking is to give those two years back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania state Rep. Mark Rozzi,\u00a0who was raped by a priest at 13<\/a>, also supported setting up such a window. “There’s no compromise here,\u201d\u00a0he told local outlet PennLive<\/a>\u00a0on Tuesday. Let’s make no mistake. There’s no compromise in these recommendations. We need to pass them exactly how they’re recommended.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/picture>\n
On Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2018, a Pennsylvania grand jury accused Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, of helping to protect abusive priests when he was Pittsburgh’s bishop. (AP Photo\/Alex Brandon)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Catholic Church has\u00a0ardently opposed creating civil windows<\/a>, arguing that they unfairly surface old accusations and\u00a0could result in massive financial liability<\/a>. And the Church isn\u2019t wrong: In 2003, California gave childhood sex abuse survivors one year in which to file civil lawsuits.\u00a0More than 500 people eventually took part in a $660 million settlement<\/a>, the largest of its kind at the time, for abuses that went back seven decades.<\/p>\n

There was no cover-up going on,\u201d Bishop David Zubik, of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, said at a news conference Tuesday,\u00a0according to the New York Times<\/a>. I think that it\u2019s important to be able to state that. We have over the course of the last 30 years, for sure, been transparent about everything that has in fact been transpiring.\u201d<\/p>\n

The grand jury, clearly, had little sympathy for the Catholic Church\u2019s worries.<\/p>\n

As a consequence of the cover-up, almost every instance of abuse we found is too old to be prosecuted,\u201d its members wrote. Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0States are trying to make it easier to punish the next Larry Nassar<\/a><\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

Pennsylvania has already found itself enmeshed in multiple controversies over its statutes of limitations. For example, the sole sexual assault prosecution against Bill Cosby \u2014 he’s been accused of sexual assault or rape by more than 45 women \u2014 took place in Pennsylvania because it was the only state in which the case\u2019s statute of limitations had not expired. Andrea Constand,\u00a0the woman whom Cosby was eventually convicted of assaulting<\/a>,\u00a0brought her case against him just weeks<\/a>\u00a0before the state\u2019s statutes of limitations would\u2019ve expired.<\/p>\n

And in 2012, lawyers working on the child sex abuse case against former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky were contacted by one alleged victim who\u2019d\u00a0missed out on his chance to sue<\/a>, because he came forward just nine months too late.<\/p>\n

Cover image: Former priest James Faluszczak, who says he was molested by a priest as a teenager, reacts as Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro speaks during a news conference at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018. (AP Photo\/Matt Rourke)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

https:\/\/news.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/9kmm7a\/pennsylvania-is-trying-to-loosen-sex-abuse-laws-after-scathing-report-on-300-catholic-priests<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Carter Sherman\u00a0\u00a0Courtesy Vice News One Catholic priest raped a 7-year-old girl while she was in the hospital after getting her tonsils out, then raped her again when she was 13. Another raped an altar boy hundreds of times, reportedly telling him, This is what all good altar boys do.\u201d Yet another regularly raped five sisters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}