More on the Pennsylvania Catholic sex abuse

Seeing in the news that Pope Francis finally has responded to the news of the Pennsylvania sex abuse report ... he says he's on the side of the victims. That's nice. I don't really believe that, though, because if he was, the US church would not be spending millions of dollars to keep statutes of limitation in place - Catholic Church spent $2M on major N.Y. lobbying firms to block child-sex law reform

Here's a bit from an article by lawyer Marci Hamilton ...

Clergy Sex Abuse in Pennsylvania: No Justice Is Intolerable

[...] Out of over 300 abusing priests and 1,000 victims documented, only claims against two priests were within the criminal statutes of limitations. These two priests were indicted earlier. The rest of the victims are simply, totally out of luck. There is literally only one way to restore justice to them: revive their expired civil statutes of limitations. In other words, to fix the wrongs done to them, they deserve the choice to file civil lawsuits. The Report itself makes that very recommendation, so let’s do it.

Well, the ones who can do it—Pennsylvania lawmakers—have failed to do so. Bills have been introduced and rallies have been held, but Pennsylvania Senate Republicans have blocked this one opening to justice for the victims. They are lobbied publicly by the bishops (via the Catholic Conference) and in the shadows by the insurance industry, and then they smilingly embrace these lobbyists’ lame and immoral arguments against the victims. They say they are horrified by what they read in such a report, but the bill that Senate Republican leader Scarnati now backs does nothing for the victims in this Report. The bill would extend the civil statute of limitations until a child victim reaches age 50 and eliminate the criminal statute of limitations. They clearly hope that the public will believe they are doing something meaningful in response to the Report while they thumb their noses at every victim in it and then kiss the bishops’ rings. This is cynicism. This is, actually, evil ...

I'm not sure the average person understands what it's like to have something like sex abuse happen to you when you're a kid. I was abused as a kid by a relative. My mom told me it would be our little secret. The guy who did it was never punished. I think people believe it's not a big deal, that kids will forget. I was five and I have never forgotten. It can taint your whole life, influence the way you see yourself, influence the way you will feel about sex, and in the case of sex abuse by priests, probably forever influence the way you feel about God. To let all the abuse by the church - abuse happening around the world, for decades, of thousands of children - be shrugged off with lame apologies is just wrong.