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	Expired Priest Abuse Cases May Be Explored Myers Wants Local Power to Deal with Priests By Jeff Diamant The Star-Ledger May 8, 2008 http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-10/1210221366159820.xml&coll=1 Newark Archbishop John J. Myers, recently named to the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, said the papal advisory committee of cardinals and bishops could help resolve a key issue in the clergy sex abuse crisis -- how to remove priests from ministry who abused children decades ago. Under the Code of Canon Law, the set of rules that govern the church, the statute of limitation for clergy sex abuse of minors expires 10 years after the victim's 18th birthday. In older cases, a bishop can ask the Vatican to bypass that rule, but Myers said he wants to explore ways for bishops to act in such matters without asking Rome. One possibility for these older cases, Myers said, would be a canon law change that treats molestation and sexual abuse of minors more as an illness than as a violation requiring a penalty. This would allow a bishop to more easily deem these priests unfit for ministry, he said. "We used to think of alcoholism as a moral failure, and now it's pretty much considered an illness," said Myers, 66. "I'm not saying that's what will happen (with clergy sex abuse of minors), but it wouldn't be impossible for us to move in that direction." "If we can find a way to work it so we don't have to apply in each instance, but we can make the judgment locally, that would be better," he said of bishops acting without making requests to the Vatican. Last month, during Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States, the New York Times reported that Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Vatican's powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, suggested in a brief interview that church authorities are considering changing canon law on the statute of limitations regarding clergy sex abuse of minors. David Clohessy, national director for the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, said he favored "anything that speeds up removing a predator from ministry," but he cautioned that such a reliance on church procedures puts undeserved faith in bishops' discretion. What are needed, he said, are stronger civil and criminal statutes of limitation, which now vary from state to state. Archbishop Myers was appointed to a five-year term on the pontificial council last month, along with several big names in the church, including Levada; Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops; and Cardinal Ivan Dias, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Jeff Diamant may be reached at jdiamant@starledger.com or (973) 392-1547.
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