Jehovah Witness victims of Childhood Sex Abuse - from the state of New York - and non Jehovah Witness victims, along with all supporters

by Sol Reform 16 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse

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    http://poststar.com/news/opinion/columns/ktingley/column-catholic-church-is-trying-to-buy-silence-of-victims/article_cac33b64-a505-52e7-b058-bfb471b435bc.html


    COLUMN: Catholic Church is trying to buy silence of victims

    • Ken Tingley
    • The New York Roman Catholic archdiocese has announced it is willing to pay off the victims of pedophile priests in exchange for their silence.
    Any records of such abuse and what the church did about it would also remain private.
    It’s an attempt by the church to again avoid accountability and responsibility for the abuse of children.
    It should hit home in this community.
    It should be an outrage here because of what Father Gary Mercure did in Queensbury and Glens Falls.
    He served as priest at Our Lady of Annunciation in Queensbury from 1982 to 1991.
    He was the campus minister at Adirondack Community College from 1982 to 1999.
    He was the principal at St. Mary’s-St. Alphonsus Regional Catholic School from 1991 to 1995 as well as a priest at St. Mary’s.
    And he was convicted in a Pittsfield, Massachusetts, courtroom in 2011 of three counts of forcible rape on a child younger than 14.
    The then-63-year-old was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison and the judge said he was “no more than a common thug.”
    But it gets worse.
    In 2013, 88 of the 563 pages of his secret church personnel file were unsealed as part of a lawsuit filed by one of his victims.
    It has previously been reported that Mercure stole money from the church and used it to lavish young men and boys with cash and gifts while remaining active sexually. They also showed that the priest used his position to gain the trust of parents whose sons he raped and abused.
    During the trial in Massachusetts, The Times-Union reported that the mother of one of the victims testified she found five pairs of her son’s bloodied underwear stuffed inside a wall in his bedroom. The victim testified he hid the underwear after Mercure raped him.
    A monster right here in our community.
    And we have no way of knowing how many victims there were.
    When accusations were first made against Mercure in the 1990s, his personnel file shows the diocese sent him away for therapy, but he was eventually returned to the ministry with no restrictions regarding children.
    Mercure was never held accountable for any sins in New York.
    Or for the alleged abuse of children in this community. That’s because New York has a statute of limitations. Adults victimized as children have until their 23rd birthday to bring a case. From what we know now about the trauma inflicted on these victims, it is an absurd standard.
    The New York State Legislature had another chance to make it right this past spring when it considered the Child Victims Act. The law would have eliminated the statute of limitations and provided a one-year civil review of past crimes.
    The New York Daily News, which took up the law as a cause this past year, reported last June that the Catholic Conference, led by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, had spent $2.1 million since 2007 to top lobbying firms across the state — including Behan Communications in Glens Falls — to block the proposed law.
    They succeeded.
    The law was not passed.
    So let’s connect the dots.
    When I first wrote about the Child Victims Act last June, I received emails from both Heath Bromley of Queensbury and Pierre Lafond of Oswego. They both wanted to talk. They had both been victims.
    Bromley said his abuse started at age 6. The word he used was “terrorized.”
    Think about that for a second.
    Lafond said his started at age 8.
    Bromley, who is now 41, was one of the two victims who testified against Mercure in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
    After the archdiocese announced its offer on Oct. 6 to compensate New York victims if they agreed to keep the abuse and the church’s response secret, I contacted both men.
    I wanted to know what they thought of the offer. I wanted to know what they thought about the Child Victims Act not passing in the Legislature.
    “Everything they do is about silence,” said Lafond, who is now 63. He said he would not seek a settlement.
    “Just another tact to defer real law coming into place. They are protecting pedophiles. This is an admission of guilt, but the whole thing is backwards. We are going to the perpetrators and asking for a solution,” said Bromley. “It shows you the putrid nature of our politicians.”
    Bromley also said he would not seek a settlement.
    Shortly after the legislative session ended in June, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he supported the removal of the statute of limitations, but that the Legislature must proceed carefully.
    The bill will be introduced again.
    Perhaps the archdiocese is worried more about what it will cost than making amends.
    “I do know of other victims of Gary Mercure,” Bromley said. “It’s crazy how close to home this was.”
    “They have never apologized to any of Gary Mercure’s victims,” Bromley said.
    “The Pope says you have to take care of victims, yet they lobby against the victims,” Lafond said of the archdiocese.
    The Times-Union reported that Gary Mercure is still receiving his pension from the church.
    Ken Tingley is the editor of The Post-Star and may be reached via email at [email protected]. His blog, “The Front Page,” discusses issues about newspapers and journalism. You can also follow him on Twitter atwww.twitter.com/kentingley.


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    https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/ny-cardinals-new-compensation-program-victims-will-keep-sex-abuse-hidden

    NY cardinal's new compensation program for victims will keep sex abuse hidden

    • Cardinal Timothy Dolan presides at a Mass June 1 at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. (CNS/Gregory A. Shemitz)
    Cardinal Timothy Dolan is trying something new. After years of successfully opposing legislation that would give New York abuse victims more time to sue, he has launched a victims' compensation program -- a first for the New York archdiocese.
    This is the Year of Mercy, and the cardinal said he was inspired by the "grace and challenge" of this fact.
    "I just finally thought: 'Darn it, let's do it,' " he told The New York Times.
    The surprise move is winning the cardinal praise. The often critical New York Daily News commendedhim, citing his "remarkable moral courage."
    As a researcher of the Catholic abuse crisis, I see his plan differently. While the fund certainly will help some victims, its biggest beneficiary will be Dolan and his management team. This is a legal strategy in pastoral garb, a tactic by the powerful archbishop to control victims and protect the church's assets and its secrets.
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    On its face, the plan is reasonable. A victim submits a claim form with documentation about rape or molestation by a priest or deacon. If deemed credible, the victim receives an award, which the archdiocese promises to disburse quickly -- within 60 days.
    The program is being administered by Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw the 9/11 fund and mediated the settlements between Jerry Sandusky's victims and Penn State.
    But there's a catch -- two catches, actually. Victims must sign a legal agreement to abide by "all requirements pertaining to privacy and confidentiality," and they must release the archdiocese from future liability -- i.e., never sue it. (See section III, paragraph G of the IRCP's Protocol webpage.)
    So the fund implements a strategy. If the Child Victims Act ever passes in New York -- and Gov. Andrew Cuomo promises it will be a priority in 2017 -- Dolan will have already flushed out and shackled many of the victims who might have filed suit.
    And unlike the Penn State claimants, the victims in Dolan's program will be signing releases without the benefit of any information about how their perpetrators were managed. Did archdiocesan officials know or suspect that the priest was a risk to children before the victim suffered abuse? Did the priest have other victims? What happened to him after the archdiocese learned of his crimes? Are children protected from him now? Under Dolan's plan, all of this stays hidden.
    Of course, agreeing not to sue is an easy concession right now for child sex abuse victims in New York. Thanks in part to lobbying by Dolan and his brother bishops, victims remain effectively powerless: the state's restrictive civil statute of limitations gives them only until age 21 to sue complicit employers. For the vast majority of victims, this is not enough time.
    In terms of its statute of limitations for child sex crimes, New York state is an outlier: only Alabama and Michigan limit victims as severely.
    This is bound to change. While the Child Victims Act was defeated yet again last year, it generatedtremendous public support.
    When it passes, the Act will give future victims more time to take action, and it will include a "look-back" clause: for a limited period, it will revive the currently expired civil claims of all abuse victims in New York.
    This retroactivity is what worries Dolan. Lawsuits by victims will result not only in payouts by the church, but the disclosure of its secret abuse files, revealing what archdiocesan managers knew and when.
    To date, because of New York's predator-friendly statute of limitations, the massive archdiocese's abuse problem has appeared tiny. Its only tally of accused priests occurred in 2004, when Cardinal Edward Egan claimed an implausible total of 49 accused priests since 1950 -- one percent of its active priests for that time period.
    Consider that in Boston, with far fewer total priests, Cardinal Sean O'Malley conceded in 2011 that 250 priests since 1950 had been accused. In Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony counted 244 accused clergy. Even the small rural diocese of Manchester, N.H., concedes more accused priests than Dolan has acknowledged in New York.
    Obviously, Dolan knows that his potential exposure is enormous, and one victim at a time, his new program will chip away at this perceived threat. Every participant will represent a case that will never be brought to light; a perpetrator's name that may never be made public; and perhaps, a story of archdiocesan mismanagement that will never be revealed.
    Inevitably, his plan will exploit those who are desperate: I'll give you quick money, but you must keep my secrets.
    Dolan has pre-empted victims before. In his prior post in Milwaukee, shortly before an expected state Supreme Court decision that would allow victims to sue for fraud, the archbishop quietly transferred$57 million in church funds into a special cemetery trust that would be off-limits to plaintiffs.
    In this year of "grace and challenge," the cardinal should do things differently. Mercy cannot come with chains. Dolan should eliminate requirements for the victim to stay silent about any aspect of the mediation. And he should accompany the fund with radical transparency.
    After all, there is the promise of his fund's title: the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program. The cardinal is using our church's language to sacramentalize his scheme, so let him follow through. As every First Communicant knows, "reconciliation" occurs only with disclosure and confession. Dolan should come clean, before the courts force him to do so. He should publish a list of accused clerics, as more than 30 other U.S. bishops have done. He should release the archdiocese's secret files on all of its abusers. And he should tell his lobbyist in Albany to cease and desist.
    Without transparency and honesty, Dolan's fund becomes just another tactic to make sure the New York archdiocese doesn't answer for its actions -- an accountability dodge that ultimately hurts children, victims, parishioners, and the church's own chance for redemption.
    [Anne Barrett Doyle is co-director of BishopAccountability.org, an independent non-profit based in Waltham, Mass., founded in 2003, to research child abuse by priests and religious and on the management of those cases by bishops, religious orders and the Holy See.]
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    • Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York gives the commencement address at the May 14 graduation ceremony at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kan. (CNS/Benedictine College)
    NCR Editorial Staff | Oct. 28, 2016
    EDITORIAL
    New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan may have the purest of motives in designing the new compensation program for victims of clergy sex abuse. He must realize, however, that he is working against a history of activity, including his own, of members of the U.S. hierarchy that hardly inspires trust.

    Dolan's effort, understandably applauded in some quarters as an act inspired by Pope Francis' Year of Mercy, sets a legal framework for compensating victims outside of court procedures. The process will be administered by respected professionals, by most measures impeccably independent, and the compensation offered will be delivered quickly.

    So, what's not to like about it? Anne Barrett Doyle does a service to abuse victims and to the Catholic community at large in raising serious questions about the process and whether the plan is an unalloyed benefit to all victims.
    Doyle is co-director with Terry McKiernan of BishopAccountability.org, a unique repository of data and arguably the most extensive catalogued collection anywhere of newspaper stories, court records, depositions, analyses and internal church correspondence having to do with the Catholic church's clergy sex abuse scandal.

    Consequently, it is not too much of a stretch to say that Doyle knows more detail about the scandal than most people, including bishops, ever will.
    Light-of-Truth-friends-2016.jpgNCR's award-winning reporting and commentary are possible because of support from people like you. Give today.
    The devil, in this instance, is in both the details and the larger context. Two details raise concerns for Doyle:

    • Victims are required to sign a legal agreement that appears to bind them to privacy and confidentiality.

    • As part of the agreement, victims receiving an award agree, in releasing the archdiocese from future liability, not to sue the church in the future.


    That second point is important because of the context. The archdiocese is engaged in an ongoing and persistent effort to keep New York state from passing the Child Victims Act, which would extend the statute of limitations allowing victims a longer time to sue following abuse. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has pledged to make passage of the bill a priority in 2017. Dolan's timely initiative could also be a legal strategy aimed at eliminating those who might make future claims against the church under a new law.

    If that appears terribly cynical, there is the matter of history and some fundamentals to the long and ugly narrative that cannot be ignored.
    First, the initial reaction by the Catholic hierarchy when the scandal first broke in 1985, and carried through for 17 years until public opinion forced the bishops to openly deal with the matter, was protection of the institution and the clergy culture.
    That approach was taken often to the long and deep detriment of abuse survivors.
    Second, the U.S. bishops have never been accountable to anyone.
    Unlike what has occurred in other countries, notably Ireland and Australia, where national investigative bodies were able to subpoena records and conduct inquiries throughout the church, the revelations in the United States have occurred piecemeal.
    Deep revelations have ensued only in those dioceses where legal procedures or grand jury investigations occurred. All of the other information gathered by bodies as a result of the U.S. bishops' 2002 Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People has been volunteered by the very bishops and other church entities under scrutiny.

    Finally, in those instances where civil investigations have resulted from grand jury investigations and court cases, invariably the numbers of abusers and abused are greater, often far greater, than those previously volunteered. And the circumstances surrounding the numbers are often far more sinister than earlier imagined.

    The U.S. bishops have never been receptive to our persistent pleas over the years for the establishment of independent truth commissions comprising trusted professionals who would have unfettered access to the files and thus the ability to compile thorough reports, without divulging confidential information, at least about the numbers involved.

    Notable exceptions to the norm have occurred — and they have been reported in these pages — but the exceptions have been rare. Dolan — in his previous position as archbishop of Milwaukee, he tried unsuccessfully to protect church assets from claimants — was not one of them.

    The New York archdiocese's new victim compensation program may indeed be the best route for some who wish to be believed, gain a bit of justice, and move on without concern of revisiting the awful issue in the future.

    We also believe caution is in order. The church has earned our healthy skepticism. Only abuse survivors can know what is in their best interest. Understanding the full context may help in making a decision.
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    http://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/cardinal-dolan-establishes-fund-for-abuse-victims


    BACKLASH TO NY FUND COMPENSATING SEX ABUSE VICTIMS

    NEWS: US NEWS
    Backlash to NY Fund Compensating Sex Abuse Victims
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    by Stefan Farrar • ChurchMilitant.com • November 12, 2016 14 Comments

    Critics claim it's the archdiocese's attempt to circumvent Child Victims Act

    NEW YORK (ChurchMilitant.com) - The New York archdiocese is implementing a program to compensate victims of sexual abuse, as long as they promise never to sue the archdiocese. The program is receiving backlash from all quarters.
    The Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program will allow victims with credible allegations of abuse to apply for compensation, with payment handed out within 60 days of the claim. Victims must also sign a confidentiality agreement as well as a release freeing the archdiocese of any litigation over related claims in the future.
    "I wish I would have done this quite a while ago," said Cdl. Timothy Dolan in early October. "I just finally thought: ‘Darn it, let's do it. I’m tired of putting it off." Dolan claimed it was Pope Francis' announcement of the Year of Mercy that inspired him to launch the compensation fund.
    Critics are claiming the program isn't as simple or as benevolent as it seems, however. In fact, some believe there's a clear strategy by the archdiocese to sweep sexual abuse claims under the rug and obfuscate the truth, while also circumventing the Child Victims Act, which would abolish the statute of limitations for sex abuse lawsuits.
    New York state senator Brad Hoylman is expressing skepticism about the program. "It should also be acknowledged that this is a canny legal strategy devised to reduce the archdiocese's liability for decades of crimes and cover-ups," said Hoylman, chief sponsor of the Child Victims Act.
    Currently, New York law places a cap on filing lawsuits once the victim reaches his 23rd birthday, after which he may not bring a claim. Often victims are not ready, however, to bring a claim at that age, only working up the courage to do so later in life. The statute of limitations prevents them from doing so. The bill would also open up a one-year window for victims to sue their abusers.
    The bill was introduced in April 16 and has 22 co-sponsors in the state senate. But the New York archdiocese has doggedly fought the bill, spending $2 million in lobbying efforts against it, arguing that the one-year window to re-open old cases would bankrupt parishes. The bill failed to pass this year, but will be back on the table in 2017.
    "Cardinal Dolan sees the writing on the wall," said Gary Greenberg, an abuse victim who supports the bill. "He knows the Child Victims Act will pass next year."
    "This is an obvious attempt to circumvent justice by creating a committee of members that he selects who will offer priest abuse survivors the opportunity of a settlement outside the legal system, and only in return for sacrificing (victims') rights," he added. "It's disgusting. Cardinal Dolan should be ashamed of himself."
    If a claimant chooses to accept a final payment pursuant to this Protocol, the claimant will be required to sign a full Release [which] will waive any rights the claimant or his/her heirs, descendants, legatees and beneficiaries may have against the Archdiocese of New York or any potentially responsible party to assert any claims relating to such allegations of sexual abuse, to file an individual legal action relating to such allegations, or to participate in any legal action associated with such allegations.
    In other words, once the victim accepts compensation, he must promise never to sue the archdiocese on related claims. The program would also keep victims in the dark about their perpetrators, as all information concerning those who abused them would be held from them.
    Mary Caplan, former director of the New York chapter of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, a group that lobbies on behalf of victims, stated she would "encourage victims to think long and hard before approaching Church officials or their representatives."
    The program is reminiscent of some of the agreements of sex abuse cases in Boston, which ended up benefiting the archdiocese and the victims' attorneys while keeping the public in the dark about sex abusers, many of whom went on to molest more victims.
    In the case of John J. Geoghan, a notorious abuser of hundreds of children, as many as 30 abuse cases were settled in private that required confidentiality agreements. Mitchell Garabedian, who filed numerous lawsuits against Geoghan, commented that settling cases in secrecy leads to victims feeling "more unnecessary guilt about the sexual molestation, even if it's years later."
    Jeffrey R. Anderson, a Minnesota lawyer who has represented more than 1,000 sex abuse victims, has also criticized confidentiality agreements. "I am greatly offended by the frequency and number of confidentially settled agreements. The Church overwhelms lawyers and survivors into silence and secrecy ... and I don't like it."

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    http://www.businessinsider.com/catholic-church-sexual-abuse-victims-compensation-fund-2016-11


    The Catholic Church has a plan to compensate sexual-abuse victims, but many will get nothing

    archbishop timothy michael dolanCardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York. AP
    Neal Gumpel, a 59-year-old screenwriter, said he was elated when he heard in October that Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, announced that the church was setting up a fund to compensate sexual-abuse victims. Gumpel said that when he was 16 the Rev. Roy Drake, a Jesuit priest, sexually assaulted him.
    The program, called the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program (IRCP), is intended to "bring a measure of peace and healing to those who have suffered abuse," Dolan said.
    The IRCP has many phases. The first, which spans from October to January, covers only those who had previously filed claims of sexual abuse against the church. The second phase, for which an implementation date has not been announced, will cover new claims filed against clergy members.
    "I thought, finally, they're acknowledging the victims," Gumpel told Business Insider. "Finally, they're admitting the pain they've caused us, not just by abusing us, but by turning their backs on us when we tried to come forward."
    But then he heard the bad news. Gumpel's claims would not be covered and he would not receive a public acknowledgement from the church.
    The IRCP only covers people abused by diocesan priests and deacons, leaving out victims of religious order members, such as Jesuits, Franciscans, Benedictines, and others, and church employees, like choirmasters and coaches, claiming that religious order members do not fall under the archdiocese's purview.
    The reason why comes down to a technicality, according to the church.
    Although clerics from religious orders, like Drake, have to secure the permission of the archbishop of New York to function as a priest at any Catholic parish, school, or institution in the diocese, canon law stipulates that the bishop isn't liable for what clerics do outside of "sacramental duties," such as hearing confession and marrying couples, Edward Mechmann, a civil attorney and head of the New York Archdiocese's Child Protection Office, told Business Insider.
    That's why Dolan's fund doesn't cover victims abused by religious order members.
    As of 2013, 79% of officials in the New York Archdiocese — which includes diocesan priests, deacons, religious priests, brothers, and sisters — are from religious orders.

    'Never seen anything like it'

    Neal Gumpel Helen GumpelNeal Gumpel, right, and his wife, Helen, regularly demonstrate against the church and Society of Jesus outside the gates of Fordham University, a Jesuit school in the Bronx, New York. Neal Gumpel
    Gumpel has tried many avenues for recourse with the church. In many ways the IRCP was his final hope.
    In 2013, Gumpel went public with his allegations after decades of keeping them secret.
    He contacted Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston lawyer who has represented hundreds of victims of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church and who was depicted in the movie "Spotlight" in 2015.
    Before contacting Garabedian, Gumpel told only the people closest to him. The abuse destroyed his life and family, he said. He is estranged from his siblings, he suffered with substance abuse for years, and his trauma contributed to the failure of his first marriage.
    Garabedian already knew about Drake when Gumpel called because he had worked with Richard Cerick, who said Drake had raped him when he was 13 years old in New York in 1969.
    Cerick succeeded in getting a six-figure settlement, according to Garabedian, from the Society of Jesus, the religious order in the church that Drake was part of, as well as a public apologyfrom Fordham University, the Jesuit university that housed Drake for 24 years and that continues to house a large number of New York Jesuits to this day.
    Garabedian and Gumpel were both hopeful that the church would agree to compensate him and issue a public apology, just as they did for Cerick.
    When Gumpel met with representatives for the Society of Jesus, they apologized for what had happened, before questioning "almost everyone" in Gumpel's life, said Gumpel and Garabedian. They eventually deemed his story credible and apologized again privately but declined to compensate him or issue a public apology.
    The Society of Jesus then said it would not compensate Gumpel because Drake had abused him while he was on a leave of absence.
    That reasoning doesn't make sense, Robert Hoatson, a former priest and the founder of Road to Recovery, an organization that advocates for victims of clergy sex abuse, told Business Insider. Jesuit priests have to go through a formal process to be "laicized," or removed from the priesthood, he said. Drake never did.
    "I'd never seen anything like it before. They said [Gumpel's] story was credible, they acknowledged that it happened, they acknowledged the problem, and then they said they wouldn't fix it," Garabedian said.
    timothy dolan hillary clinton donald trumpHillary Clinton, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, and Donald Trump at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation dinner in New York in 2016.Thomson Reuters

    Inconsistencies in the church

    The church's distinction between diocesan priests and deacons and religious order clerics and church officials doesn't make complete sense, according to many experts on canon law.
    Canon law stipulates that the bishop in any diocese holds ultimate authority over religious order clerics, Patrick J. Wall, a canon lawyer and former Roman Catholic priest who has written extensively about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, told Business Insider.
    "There is no statute of canon law which says the bishop is only responsible in certain cases," Wall said. "The bishop is responsible, according to canon law, for the people of God. That includes any priest, religious [order member], layperson, or volunteer who works or functions in the diocese in collaboration with the bishop."
    Even in practice, the church has not always been consistent in differentiating between diocesan members and religious order members when it comes to sexual abuse.
    At the beginning of the abuse crisis, the church frequently settled and gave payments to victims of religious order members, Anne Barrett-Doyle told Business Insider. She is the codirector of BishopAccountability.org, an information resource that tracks sexual abuse by members of the Roman Catholic Church.
    For example, the New York Archdiocese took partial responsibility for sexual abuse committed by the Rev. Bruce Ritter, a Franciscan priest, in the 1990s. Ritter was never "defrocked" from the priesthood.
    In 2007, the Los Angeles Archdiocese, in conjunction with religious orders, paid out $660 million to settle claims that 508 victims brought against 221 priests, brothers, teachers, and employees in the largest church-abuse case nationwide. That same year, the San Diego Diocese agreed to pay $200 million to 144 victims who said they were abused by diocesan and religious-order clerics. In 2004, the Orange County Diocese paid $100 million to settle claims by 91 victims against 44 priests and religious-order members.
    Neal Gumpel Bob HoatsonNeal Gumpel, right, and Robert Hoatson demonstrate against the church and the Society of Jesus a couple of times a month. Neal Gumpel

    The 'look-back window'

    Outside of excluding victims of religious clerics, Dolan's program has been criticized as being instituted to circumvent legal action against the church.
    New York's current sexual-abuse laws, particularly those regarding child sexual abuse, are among the most stringent in the country, because they give victims a very small window of time within which to take legal action than do laws in other states.
    The statute of limitations for child sexual abuse in New York gives victims only until age 23 to prosecute their abusers and until age 21 to prosecute negligent employers. By comparison, Connecticut, Florida, Delaware, and other states have no civil or criminal statute of limitations for child sex abuse.
    The IRCP comes at a time when victims advocates are gaining ground pushing for statute-of-limitations reform in New York. The Child Victims Act, which has received support in the New York Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, aims to eliminate the statute of limitations for child-sexual-abuse cases. It includes a "look-back window," which would give victims of child sexual abuse one year to retroactively file civil suits against their abusers.
    Cecilia Springer, age 85, would benefit from the Child Victims Act. Springer said she was abused in 1945 at the age of 14 by Sister Mary Andrew, who was the principal of Notre Dame High School in Manhattan, which she attended. A religious sister for 30 years and a Garabedian client, Springer cannot sue the church because the statute of limitations has ended.
    The Child Victims Act is her last hope. She cannot participate in the IRCP because, like Gumpel, she was abused by a religious-order member, not a diocesan priest or deacon.
    "If it doesn't pass, then I have no way of seeking justice for the crime committed against me," she said. "The church is turning a blind eye to me and anyone like me who was abused by a [religious-order member]. What other option do I have?"
    Springer, Gumpel, and others like them would likely be the church's biggest liability if the bill passes, said Barrett-Doyle, who added that the IRCP is intended to signal to New York legislators that the church is taking care of victims themselves, while limiting how much it has to pay.
    "A 'look-back window' like the one in the Child Victims Act would be catastrophic for the Church. Can you imagine how many people would sue them?" she said.
    The IRCP stipulates that if claimants choose to participate in the program, they forever waive the right to sue the church, thereby releasing the institution of any liability in the future, and they must sign an agreement to adhere to "all requirements pertaining to privacy and confidentiality."
    "If the Child Victims Act ever passes in New York — and Gov. Andrew Cuomo promises it will be a priority in 2017 — Dolan will have already flushed out and shackled many of the victims who might have filed suit," Barrett-Doyle wrote in an op-ed for the National Catholic Reporter in October.
    "The church is doing what it always does," said Garabedian. "It's taking care of the problem quietly and paying as little money as possible, all while sweeping the abuse under the rug."
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    This cancer of child sexual abuse seems to be endemic in society , including the most trusted in public service that are supposed to be protecting the young vulnerable in society .

    It seems no wonder little is accomplished when those that are supposed to be protecting our young ones are themselves complicit in abusing these vulnerable children .

    How do we combat this crime when the powers that be are complicit in this crime ?

    Anybody ? have any solutions ?

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