PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Penn Live
9/22/2005, 5:43 p.m. ET
By JOANN LOVIGLIO
The Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Even if Pennsylvania lengthens its statute of limitations for child sex abuse lawsuits, as recommended by a grand jury in the Philadelphia archdiocese probe, advocates also urge that the statute be lifted entirely for at least a year to allow even older cases to move forward.
Passing a law to abolish the statute of limitations would "protect our grandkids from that day forward, but it doesn't address past abuse," David Clohessy, national director of the Survival Network of Those Abused by Priests and Other Clergy, said Thursday. "And abusive priests get a free pass and access to a current crop of victims."
Clohessy said that states should look at what California has done. The state lifted the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits in sex abuse cases for all of 2003.
The Philadelphia grand jury on Wednesday released a scathing report documenting assaults on minors by more than 60 priests since 1967 and alleged that church leaders covered up the abuse, a claim the archdiocese denied. Among its recommendations on combatting the molestation of children by priests, the grand jury recommended lengthening or abolishing the statute of limitations for sexual abuse.