By Bishop Paul R. Sanchez
Why is our society not concerned about all victims of sexual abuse? Veteran religion reporter Peter Steinfels, commenting on the Pennsylvania grand jury report on the state’s six Catholic dioceses, says: “One naturally wonders what a seventy-to-eighty-year scrutiny of sex abuse in public schools or juvenile penal facilities would find.”
The New York State Catholic Conference says that it believes that the Child Victims Act, which Governor Andrew Cuomo promoted in his State of the State message this past week, would only apply to private institutions, giving public institutions like public schools and the government a pass.
Cardinal Dolan states in his January 17, 2019 Daily News article: “If the governor wants to be fair, then the victim comes first, whether or not he or she was abused by a public school teacher, an employee in a state-run program, a coach or counselor, a health-care professional, a worker in a government-administered foster-care agency, or, yes, a rabbi, minister, or priest…. If the long-needed Child Victims Act is rightly focused on just treatment of all victims, then it will easily gain the broad support that it should, without pillorying the Church.”
Why are all victims of sexual abuse not given equal treatment?
For further information, go to www.nyscatholic.org to read the article Former Court of Appeals Judge: Child Victims Act Shields Public Entities in Lookback.
Related
Speed aid to abuse survivors: The Child Victims Act should build on the success of Catholic Church compensation funds by Timothy Cardinal Dolan
PDF copy of the editorial, from the Daily News print edition, December 31, 2018
Crisis in the Church: Questions and answers from Bishop DiMarzio of the Diocese of Brooklyn/Queens