FRESNO BEE: Opposing extension of statute of limitations

Fresno Bee
Published 4:11 p.m. PST Thursday, December 12, 2002

(SMW) - Beginning Jan. 1, any victim of child sex abuse in California will have one year to sue any institution that knowingly employed an abuser who then went on to victimize other children. That law, passed at the height of the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal, does not name the church although that is clearly its target.

The state's Catholic hierarchy did not oppose the law (which suspends for one year the statute of limitations in child abuse cases) in the Legislature. But in a letter read in every parish of the state last Sunday, the bishops of California signaled they may challenge it now. That would be a mistake.

The law seeks to revive the rights of child victims to sue only in the most egregious cases - those in which church authorities knowingly assigned a priest who had molested children to another position, frequently in another parish, where he had the opportunity and used it to abuse children again.

In California, the most notorious such case involved the Rev. Paul Shanley. The 71-year-old priest was arrested in San Diego last May and charged with three counts of raping a child when he served in a parish in the Boston area. Despite church records documenting abuse that dated back to 1967, Shanley was assigned to a parish in San Bernardino County in 1990.

In another case, Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony admits he reassigned a priest he knew had molested young boys to other parishes where the priest continued to abuse children. That priest was allowed to retire quietly in 2000.

California's statute of limitation laws were already generous to childhood victims of sex abuse. Victims may sue up to their 26th birthday or within three years of discovering that their emotional problems are linked to abuse. The new law extends the right to sue for one year to victims who may have been aware of their right but failed to exercise it.

The rationale for that is clear. Many of the victims abused by priests say they were pressured by church officials and church insurance companies to keep the abuse a secret. Some of the traumatized victims and their families didn't want to make their suffering public. Others were told or assumed that the church would not place the abusing priest in a position to take advantage of children again.

In their letter to parishioners, the bishops outlined correctly how difficult discovering the truth may be in many of these allegations. But as the scandal has mushroomed in recent months, evidence has surfaced that documents the extent of high church officials' knowledge about criminal behavior by abusing priests and their active participation in concealing the truth and exposing other children to danger. Any private business that behaved in so reckless a manner would be held liable; so must the church.

Finally, the bishops lamented the "false" portrayal of the church as a large corporation with "deep pockets. ... The vast majority of Catholic assets," they argued, "... are devoted to education, worship, to the poor and other works of charity." No one can deny that the church does much good in California and around the world. That fact should weigh heavily in deciding whether and how much to award victims. But it cannot absolve church leaders from responsibility for their actions.