New York Anti-church Bill, Tom Mcfeely, National Catholic Register, March 13, 2009

New York Anti-church Bill

By Tom Mcfeely
National Catholic Register
March 13, 2009

http://www.ncregister.com/daily/new_york_anti-church_bill/?utm_source=NCRegister.com&utm_campaign=7d41ce9628-RSS_DAILY_EMAIL&utm_medium=email

First Connecticut, and now New York.

Hot on the heels of the anti-Church bill introduced into the Connecticut legislature comes a piece of New York legislation about which Dennis Poust, spokesman for the Catholic bishops of New York, said this: “We believe this bill is designed to bankrupt the Catholic Church.”

The bill, which is now before the New York State Assembly, would temporarily lift the statute of limitations for sexual abuse lawsuits in New York. Poust made his comment about its ramifications for the Church in this New York Times article about the bill.

As in the case of the Connecticut anti-Church bill that seeks to remove the right of the state’s bishops to govern their own parishes, Catholic leaders believe the legislators backing the New York bill have a hidden agenda.

The hidden motive in Connecticut: A bid by homosexual activists to stifle the voice of the Church against efforts there to pass legislation to promote same-sex “marriage” and other elements of the homosexual agenda.

As the Diocese of Bridgeport said in a statement about the Connecticut anti-Church bill that was tabled Tuesday because of Catholic outrage, ““This bill, moreover, is a thinly-veiled attempt to silence the Catholic Church on the important issues of the day, such as same-sex ‘marriage.’”

The hidden motive in New York is much the same, but even more sweeping: To wipe the Church out as a moral and institutional presence by allowing trial lawyers to pursue abuse settlements that would “bankrupt the Church,” as Poust warned on behalf of the state’s bishops.

The New York bill is blatantly discriminatory against the Church, in that it waives the statute of limitations for lawsuits against the Church for sexual abuse yet leaves intact the far more restrictive statute of limitations for sexual abuse lawsuits against public schools and other public agencies.

“The disparity is built into the legal protections granted under existing state law to all public workers and agencies: to sue a public employee or agency for damages of any kind, a person is required to file a claim within 90 days of the alleged injury,” the Times reported. “A victim of childhood sex abuse by a public school teacher, for instance, has 90 days after turning 18 to file notice of a claim.”

We expect New York Catholics will be no less resolute than their neighbors in Connecticut, in communicating to their state representatives that they will not accept this unjust legislative effort to damage the Church in order to advance immoral political and social agendas that the Church opposes.