PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call
The nation's longest grand jury investigation into priest abuse resulted in a scathing report last week, with Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham underscoring its seriousness: ''When we say abuse, we don't just mean inappropriate touching. We mean child rape.''
The grand jury convened in 2002. Its report documents assaults on minors by more than 60 priests in the Philadelphia Archdiocese since 1945, including 12 who served in the Lehigh Valley region at some point. (The Allentown Diocese was part of the Philadelphia Archdiocese until 1961.) It also describes how two former archbishops, Cardinals Anthony Bevilacqua and John Krol, and now-Allentown Bishop Edward P. Cullen, then chief aide to Cardinal Bevilacqua, covered up the abuse.
Going forward, what matters most is timely state legislative action to better address sex crimes committed against children by clergy and others. State Rep. Jennifer Mann, D-Lehigh, had introduced a bill two months ago to reclassify sex crimes against minors, putting them in the same category as murder, for which a statute-of-limitations law doesn't apply.
Also, state Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton, should get support for her effort to revive a statute abolition bill that she had sought in 2002. Instead, the Legislature at that time decided to extend the statute of limitations for sexual abuse allegations to a victim's 30th birthday; victims previously only had five years after their 18th birthday to report abuse. There is no question that the crux of the problem for victims of sexual abuse is the state's current limitation on when criminal action can be taken.