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Is It Fair That The Innocent Pay For The Guilty?
An additional 67 million victims
of the sexual abuse scandals on the horizon
State legislatures across the nation are now being
pressured to lift or extend retroactively their civil statutes
of limitations related to sexual abuse. This will permit thousands
of tort lawsuits to be brought against the Catholic Church, which
are presently barred. These legal actions are based on real or imaginary
sexual abuse alleged to have occurred decades ago. Those pushing
these lawsuits hope to extract billions from the Church.
The American Society for the Defense of Tradition,
Family, and Property – TFP calls on the Catholic faithful
to fight these extraordinary legislative efforts with utmost vigor.
We strongly believe that these retroactive changes to civil
statutes of limitations today are supremely unfair since
the burden of the punitive damages will be borne by the Catholic
faithful in general, not the individual criminals or their accomplices.
As the financial consequences of this sacking of
the Catholic Church’s assets are felt in Catholic homes at
large, the faith of millions will be shaken, clearly tilting the
scales of America’s Cultural War in favor of the secularist
anti-religious camp.
* * *
America has never experienced the butchery of bishops
and priests that characterized the persecution of the Church by
atheistic Communism during the twentieth century or the Jacobins
during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror (1793-1794).
However, our nation may soon witness the same wholesale confiscation
of Church property that accompanied these bloody persecutions.
PILLAGING THE CATHOLIC
CHURCH ON A MASSIVE SCALE
Aided by a secularist media, an orchestrated effort is underway
by Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests and Other Clergy
(SNAP), Voice of the Faithful, and other liberal Catholic advocacy
groups, to lift or extend civil statutes of limitations nationwide.
California was the first state to do this. In 2003,
the Golden State approved a one-year “window of opportunity,”
a “look-back” period that suspended the civil statute
of limitations and allowed lawsuits to be filed regardless of when
the abuse is alleged to have taken place. Media reports say 1,000
lawsuits were filed.
State legislatures across the nation are now being
asked to amend their civil statutes of limitations for childhood
sexual abuse crimes in similar ways, or to abolish them altogether.
If such changes become a national trend, we can expect to see the
Church paying out billions of dollars to defend itself and to fund
the resulting awards and settlements.
As Prof. Patrick J. Schiltz, Saint Thomas More
Chair in Law at St. Thomas University in Minneapolis, observed:
“It’s like warfare… Phase One was for plaintiff
lawyers to maximize bad publicity and destroy the credibility of
the Church. Phase Two is to use that publicity to push for legislative
changes. Phase Three will be to collect.”1
Awards and settlements for the Church sexual abuse
scandal already exceed a billion dollars. But with legislative changes,
the total cost may be many billions more before the storm blows
over.
Once insurance limits are exhausted, these billions
will come from Church bank accounts and then from the sale of Church
assets on the auction block. This means real property such as churches,
schools, and hospitals and personal property like vehicles, vestments,
and chalices.
SEXUAL ABUSE IS A
GENERAL PROBLEM OF A HYPERSEXUALIZED CULTURE
It is tragically true and horrendous beyond words that clergy and
religious infected by the moral rot of our hypersexualized culture
did in fact sexually abuse many minors. There is no justifying these
heinous sins and crimes. As with any institution, the human element
of the Church – its hierarchy, clergy, religious, and faithful
– is capable of sin and crime.
However, it is not proven that the incidence of
clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is greater than that
found in other sectors of society that deal with minors: public
and private schools, libraries, youth associations, sports and recreational
clubs. Sad to say, much sexual abuse occurs even within the home.2
For example, in a report prepared for the U.S.
Department of Education, Charol Shakeshaft, a Hofstra University
scholar, suggests that between 6.7 percent and 9.6 percent of public
school children across the country have been sexually abused or
harassed.3
Why have the media and victims advocacy groups
singled out the Catholic Church to be whipped at the pillory?
THE DROP IN RECENT
SEXUAL ABUSE CASES SUGGEST THAT EFFECTIVE MEASURES ARE BEING TAKEN
With such an unprecedented welcome from the media during these five
years of intensive investigative reporting, it is odd there are
so few recent cases of clergy child sexual abuse while
many decades-old cases are being uncovered now.
Victims advocacy groups argue that the dramatic
drop is due to the fact that child victims are unwilling, unable,
or ashamed to report them now, but that they will do so years or
decades hence. However, while victims may be reluctant, parents,
friends, neighbors, teachers and doctors are especially alert, if
not legally bound, to report observed problems to the proper authorities.
The fact is that even in-depth government investigations
are having difficulty uncovering recent cases. For example,
on September 15, 2005, a Philadelphia grand jury submitted its report,
the result of a three-year investigation into clergy sexual abuse
in the Philadelphia archdiocese. Although its 423 pages uncover
in lurid detail the abominable moral decay in certain segments of
the Philadelphia clergy, it is significant that not a single indictable
case was found. The report reads:
Under present Pennsylvania law, the single, dispositive
fact is the date of the final act of abuse, and we do not know
of any act of priest child sexual abuse recent enough to permit
prosecution in the Commonwealth under the current statutes of
limitation.
Pennsylvania’s statutes of limitation for
sexual crimes have been revised numerous times since 1982. The
most recent amendment, as of 2002, requires child sexual abuse
cases to be initiated by the date of the child victim’s
30th birthday.4
Massachusetts Attorney General O’Reilly came
to a similar conclusion after investigating the Boston archdiocese.5
We suggest that this drop in the number of recent
clergy sexual abuse cases reported is due in part to the fact that
many bishops began taking measures years ago against the molesters—measures
that are proving effective. However, the media give the bishops
little credit for this.
We also suggest that this dramatic drop in recent
child sexual abuse cases is another reason why Statehouses nationwide
are being pressured to lift or extend their civil statutes of limitations.
“REPRESSED MEMORY” IS A
TRAVESTY OF SCIENCE AND SUBVERTS THE RULE OF LAW
Tort liability attorneys want to be able to file lawsuits based
on “repressed memories,” “recovered memories,”
or, to use their proper scientific designation, “false memories.”
The myth of “repressed memory” claims
that the psychological trauma from abuse is so profound that the
victim consigns it to unconsciousness. Supposedly, the abuse is
remembered only years or even decades later.
Harvard psychology professor Richard J. McNally
and author of Remembering Trauma (2003) argues that this
“blocking” does not happen. “The more traumatic
and stressful something is, the less likely someone is to forget
it.” He calls repressed memories, “psychiatric folklore.”6
Since 1992, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation
(FMSF) has been battling to eradicate “repressed memories”
from psychiatric and psychological therapy. Dr. Paul R. McHugh,
former psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins University Hospital,
FMSF board member, and an eminent contender in the “memory
wars,” claims that the battle has now been won at the highest
medical echelons.7
If this is true, it is most unfortunate that this
scientifically flawed myth would find some credence with the Philadelphia
grand jury. We quote, from the Report of the Grand Jury:
Powerful psychological forces often prevent child sexual abuse
victims from reporting the abuse until well into adulthood, if
at all. Many victims feel that their abuse is their fault; many
feel that they should not get their abusers into trouble; many
are ashamed of their abuse; and many simply repress for
decades any memories of the abuse.8
It is absolutely irresponsible and unacceptable
that a flawed scientific theory should serve to justify the lifting
of statutes of limitation for childhood sexual abuse crimes.
IS IT JUST TO PUNISH
THE INNOCENT CATHOLIC FAITHFUL FOR CRIMES OF THE GUILTY?
Faced with sexual abuse lawsuits seeking hundreds of millions of
dollars, the Catholic dioceses of Davenport, Iowa, San Diego, Calif.,
Portland, Ore., Spokane, Wash., and Tucson, Ariz. have already filed
for bankruptcy protection. Many more will be doing the same if retroactive
changes to civil statutes of limitations for tort liability actions
are approved.
State legislatures that open the door to these
thousands of lawsuits will be committing a supreme injustice. This
is because settlement funds will tragically not be coming from the
bank accounts of individual perpetrators, or individual bishops
in the know who refused to act prudent and honorably.
No, the billions to be paid out will come from
the Church as an institution, not the criminals.
Yes, the very same Church whom the criminals betrayed
in violating their vows of chastity and sinning against Her law.
These are criminals who must have been aware of the solemn warning
given by Our Lord Jesus Christ: “But he that shall scandalize
one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for
him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he
should be drowned in the depths of the sea” (Matt. 18:6).
Is this not the supreme injustice? That the Church
the perpetrators betrayed in committing their crimes is the one
who will have to pay the billions in punitive damages? Will not
a pillaged Catholic Church be the greatest victim of the sexual
abuse scandals?
When churches, schools, and hospitals built with
the generous alms of Catholics are mortgaged or sold to come up
with settlement funds, either the Church does without these facilities
and institutions, or the funds to rebuild them must come from new
contributions by the Catholic faithful.
However, the Catholic faithful themselves are also
innocent of the real or imaginary crimes behind the settlements.
Why should they have to replace this Church property? Is it just
that tomorrow’s Catholic schoolchildren who have nothing to
do with a perpetrator’s decades-old sexual abuse crimes lose
their local Catholic elementary, middle, or high school? Is it fair
that their parents, who are innocent of the crimes will have no
church where they can pray and receive the sacraments? Is it right
that the whole parish lose its parish hall where members can socialize
with the rest of the community? What about the poor, certainly not
accomplices in these crimes, who will be turned out into the streets
so that hundreds of millions presently spent on the Church’s
many charitable activities can be sunk into settlements and attorney
fees?
As Prof. Schiltz observes,
To my knowledge, this is the first time in history
in which punitive damages are routinely inflicted upon the victims—or
at least those completely innocent—of wrongful conduct.
In one case, the United States Supreme Court held that punitive
damages could not be awarded against a municipality because the
damages would have to be paid by innocent taxpayers. In another
case, the Court held that punitive damages could not be awarded
against a labor union because the damages would have to be paid
by innocent union members.”9
Why should state legislatures treat the Catholic
Church and the faithful in a different manner? It is supremely unfair
to enact retroactive legislation that will deprive Catholics
of the benefits of their religion because facilities are sold to
fund settlements. The faithful should not be subjected to financial
hardship (new and substantial contributions) to replace Church property
lost to settlements attached to cases in the distant past.
THE WEAKENING OF THE
CATHOLIC CHURCH DIRECTLY AFFECTS THE CULTURAL WAR AND WILL TEST
THE FAITH OF MILLIONS
Regardless of the intentions of those who have mounted this assault
on the Church – granting even their good faith – their
victory will have two very grave consequences for the Catholic faithful
and the nation:
(a) Seeing the Catholic Church struggling and
impoverished, militant secularists in our society will feel emboldened
to seek further restraints on the public expression of religious
beliefs in general;
(b) the faith of millions more will be severely
tested by the loss of Church facilities and institutions, which
will take decades to rebuild and only at great financial cost
and sacrifice to those Catholics who persevere.
The pillaging of Church property to pay off abusive court awards
and settlements will alter profoundly the lineup of forces in America’s
unbloody Cultural War between those defending a Christian, natural
moral order and those seeking to establish a secularist society
that excludes God and His Law from the lives of men.
As Michel de Jaeghere rightly reminds us “The
Church stands alone in proclaiming today the existence of a natural
moral order, knowable by reason, and which imposes itself on civil
law.”10
Comments by syndicated columnist Don Feder, President
of Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation, help understand the devastating
impact a weakened Catholic Church will have on America’s Cultural
War:
Why does the secular left hate conservative Christians?
It’s less a matter of theology than morality…
It’s because devout Catholics—and
evangelicals—are opposed to abortion on demand, euthanasia,
gay marriage and the panoply of social positions embraced by the
national Democratic Party, academia, the judiciary and much of
the media, that they have incurred the establishment’s wrath.
Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation was organized
because we recognize that Christians are the last remaining obstacle
to the moral deconstruction of America, because attacks on Christians
are motivated by hatred for the values they espouse.
…We understand that if Christians falter,
America will fail—with disastrous consequences for Jews
and Christian alike.11
ARE WE SEEING A NEW
PERSECUTION AGAINST THE CHURCH?
This “confiscation” of Church property does not differ
from that suffered by the Church in the many persecutions She has
endured during 2,000 years. Instead of the State being the beneficiary
of the spoils, however, the plunder this time goes to attorneys
and their clients, the real or imaginary victims of sexual abuse.
While the motives and sophisms used to justify the “confiscation”
are different today than they were in the past, the consequences
for the Church and the faithful will be the same.
If statehouses lift or extend the civil statutes
of limitations for child sexual abuse tort actions, and Church property
begins to be sold to pay for the litigation and the settlements,
millions of Catholics will ask if a veiled persecution of the Church
in America is not underway.
We respectfully urge lawmakers and judges to weigh
the immediate situations placed before them within the larger picture
of the common good of the nation. What is at stake is not only if
victims of unjustifiable sexual abuse and their attorneys are to
receive compensation, but if the Catholic Church and its 67 million
faithful will be expected to pay for it.
It is proper to justice to balance equitably the
rights of contending parties. For this reason, justice is depicted
as a blindfolded woman holding a set of scales. Justice is supposed
to be blind. It should not choose partially in favor of some, to
the detriment of others. Justice protects everyone who is innocent,
and assures them equal protection under the law.
Taking the extraordinary measure of lifting or
extending the civil statutes of limitations for tort actions involving
child sexual abuse will make the Church and the faithful who are
innocent pay for the crimes of others. It victimizes the Church
as an institution and 67 million Catholics nationwide. This is not
justice. It is religious persecution.
It is high time for Catholics nationwide to fight
back!
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