Catholic Abuse Denial Justice
Title: Why would a Catholic school seek to deny justice for victims of sexual abuse?
Author: Mark Crawford
Publisher: The Star-Ledger NJ
Date: 10JUN2020
As citizens from every corner of this nation rightfully raise their voices crying out against grave injustices is it not clear that abuse of power, lack of transparency and the failure to hold accountable those who abuse their trust inflicts immeasurable harm on the fabric of our society? One need not look far to see some parallels between recent national protests and the Catholic church’s sexual abuse scandal; sacred institutions betrayed the trust of the people they are here to protect and serve.
For the better part of two decades, victims of sexual abuse pleaded with state lawmakers to fix New Jersey’s outdated statute of limitation laws. Several bills came and went as our New Jersey Catholic bishops hired high powered lobbyists and their own arsenal of attorneys from the Catholic Conference to oppose such measures at every opportunity.
Finally, in 2019, the state greatly expanded rights for both child and adult victims of sexual assaultand provides a two-year window for victims of past abuse to have recourse. The passage of that bill provided one of the best laws in the country ensuring victims once locked out of our courts would now have access to our justice system. It also enabled victims to hold accountable all the institutions that had hid or harbored known predators or failed to protect new victims from those who would prey upon the young.
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