BishopAccountability.org
	Turlish: End Statute of Limitations for Abuse Victims By Sister Maureen Paul Turlish MetroWest Daily News June 2, 2008 http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinions/opinion_columnists/x491731033/ Turlish-End-statute-of-limitations-for-abuse-victims The Rev. Paul R. Shanley is an archetypal figure, a product of the clerical system that spawned, enabled and protected him. He speaks to the tragic need to change all states' inadequate childhood sexual abuse statutes for the protection of children. To even consider that Shanley remained a priest for 43 years after the first credible and official complaint was made to the Archdiocese of Boston in 1961 is appalling. Moreover, that he will remain a priest forever, even though he was officially laicized by the Holy See in 2004, because the church teaches that there is some indelible priestly character taken on by the soul during ordination is even more distressing. It is insulting to the priests I know, especially those I have met across the country who attempt to minister to two and even three parish communities in rural areas of Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana and Minnesota. These men, these priests, represent the spiritual underpinning of the church I know. However, the more important reality is not that Shanley may retain forever some indelible priestly mark. Rather, it is that the possibility exists that he may obtain a new trial. If life were fair, Shanley would spend the rest of his natural life incarcerated. Children, young people and vulnerable adults would never again be put in harm's way as they were since Shanley's 1960 ordination in the Archdiocese of Boston. If life were fair and church officials like Cardinals Medeiros, Cushing and Law and Bishops Daily, Mulcahy and John McCormack, who knew about Shanley early on, had done what they should have done, there would be no entertaining the possibility of a new trail. This reality is much harder to stomach and it is the reason why the citizens of all of our states should be supporting legislation that will forever remove all criminal and civil statutes of limitation regarding the sexual abuse of children. It is unconscionable and downright immoral for churches of any denomination to be opposing the removal of statutes of limitation and fighting allegations of crimes, known to be credible, in court on the basis of arbitrary statutes. This is tragic and it speaks to the skewed value we as a society place on children, especially those victims of childhood sexual abuse. Church history tells us that the problems of sexual abuse were seriously condemned in the earliest days of the church. Church Councils and Canon Law were very specific in their condemnations of sexual aberrations and just as specific as to punishments, sometimes even including death. As members of a community of believers, the people of God, we say we are concerned with the rights of the unborn. We say we are concerned with protecting the rights of immigrants, legal or illegal. We say we are concerned with the trafficking of human beings. But while we may take the moral high ground on these issues, many of us ignore the victims of childhood sexual abuse who are right in front of us and instead talk about the abuse victims who must be in it for the money along with their greedy lawyers, make inflammatory statements about the anti-catholic attitudes of anyone who would suggest accountability and the bias of just about every newspaper in the country, calling down God's eternal wrath on them from time to time. None of which does much to address the problem. This is a continuing societal problem, a tragedy of unspeakable horrors which must be dealt with, but justice, like charity, has to begin at home. We are all still waiting for that promised accountability and transparency even while then United States Conference of Catholic Bishops president Bishop Wilton Gregory was telling us that, "The terrible history recorded here today is history." No, it is not behind us as Gregory would have wished because church records, forced into the public venue by courts across the country and around the world, have brought that reality home to us with a vengeance. Jesus said, "the truth shall set you free," but when will the truth be known? Pope John Paul II did not do what needed to be done and Pope Benedict has come and gone yet the tragedy continues and so does the heartache. Real accountability requires that all arbitrary statutes of limitation, criminal and civil, on the sexual abuse of our children be removed and that a window of at least two years be provided to allow previously time barred cases to be brought forward in a court of law. Justice and charity are what Jesus taught. He never said it was contingent on the price tag. The people of all states and religious persuasions deserve better and our churches should be leading the way, not building barriers that thwart access to justice. And Paul R. Shanley? He should be kept in jail.
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