News Story of the Day

The Guam Daily Post, Post News Staff  June 28, 2016

We join those in the community who support Bill 326 which proposes to eliminate the statute of limitations for civil cases involving child sex abuse. We continue to see child molestation as a particularly heinous crime with traumatic, long-term emotional impact.

June 21, 2016, NPR, KQED Public Radio

BY TYLER MCGHEE, TUESDAY, JUNE 21ST 2016, KMEG 44, SiouxLandNews

At just 12 years old, Tim Lennon says he was raped by Father Peter Murphey after the priest joined the Blessed Sacrament parish in 1960.

"That sadness, or depression, anger, they don't leave," said Lennon.

Lennon, who's lived in California for years, was one of 12 in an Irish-Catholic family. His sister Cathy Frisch who lives in Dakota Dunes, says there was always something "different" about her brother compared to other kids.

• The LNP Editorial Board, June 20, 2016, Lancaster Online

June 20, 2016, Philly.com

A bogus hearing staged by the Pennsylvania Senate Judiciary Committee last week suggested some members are determined to protect the Catholic Church and insurance companies instead of securing justice for the victims of pedophiles and the institutions that protect them.

Considering a bill passed by the House that would give abuse victims more time to file criminal and civil claims, the committee limited testimony to the question of the measure's constitutionality.

Stephanie Kirchgaessner, June 17, 2016, the guardian

The Catholic church in Pennsylvania has been accused of employing “mafia-like” tactics in a campaign to put pressure on individual Catholic lawmakers who support state legislation that would give victims of sexual abuse more time to sue their abusers.

The lobbying campaign against the legislation is being led by Philadelphia archbishop Charles Chaput, a staunch conservative who recently created a stir after inadvertently sending an email to a state representative Jamie Santora, in which he accused the lawmaker of “betraying” the church and said Santora would suffer “consequences” for his support of the legislation. The email was also sent to a senior staff member in Chaput’s office, who was apparently the only intended recipient.

By Bill White, The Morning Call, June 15, 2016

I've been writing -- here and here -- about the way the Catholic Church is working hard to convince its faithful to exert pressure on state lawmakers over a bill that would extend statutes of limitations in cases of child sex abuse.

House Bill 1947, which easily passed the House in April, would eliminate the statute of limitations for criminal cases of child sexual abuse and extend the statute for civil cases until the victim reaches age 50, retroactively, from the present age 30.

By Kathleen E. Carey, [email protected], The Times Herald

The head of the state Senate Judiciary Committee was labeled “biased” and his oversight at a hearing on extending the statue of limitations for child sex abuse victims to file civil lawsuits called “legislative ethics at its worst” because of his law firm’s representation of Catholic interests contesting a similar statute in Delaware.

By NCR Editorial Staff  |  Jun. 10, 2016, National Catholic Reporter

In recent decades, the Vatican apparatus has found the means to reach deep into the ranks of the faithful to banish, condemn, excommunicate and otherwise impose disciplines on those who advanced a discordant idea or advocated for the wrong cause or dared to question the exclusion of women from any meaningful level of decision-making within the church.

Yet, more than 30 years after the first national exposé of the sex abuse crisis ran in the pages of NCR, we are still waiting for a clear, transparent and workable system for getting rid of bishops who ignore, abet or cover up crimes against the community's children or fail to abide by rudimentary cautions and procedures for accountability.

By Karen Lee Ziner, Journal Staff Writer, Jun2 10, 2016, Providence Journal

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) accused Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence Thomas J. Tobin of "keeping hidden" the names of "at least 95 accused predator priests in Rhode Island."

At a news conference outside the Cathedral of Saints Peter & Paul, they demanded that Tobin "publicly reveal the names of all accused abusive clerics, and post their names, photos, whereabouts and work histories on his diocesan website."