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	Catholic Church Role in Killing Sex-Abuse Bill Downplayed By Brian Lockhart Connecticut Post May 8, 2010 http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Catholic-Church-role-in-killing-sex-abuse-bill-479607.php The Legislature's Judiciary Committee introduces a controversial bill the Catholic Church finds discriminatory, Connecticut's bishops issue an urgent call to parishioners to protest, and the proposal goes away. Sound familiar? On its face, the Catholic Church's recent defeat of legislation extending the statute of limitations for sex abuse echoes the organization's 2009 quashing of a highly controversial Judiciary Committee proposal giving the laity greater oversight of parish finances. In an April 10 letter distributed at weekend Mass the bishops, including William E. Lori of the Bridgeport diocese, invoked that comparison to again rally the faithful. "You will remember the now infamous Senate Bill 1098 last year, which was an attempt to restructure the governance of the Catholic Church," they wrote. "Your immediate and aggressive action against the bill helped defeat it. Once again, it is time to act and do so decisively." But even church officials acknowledge the circumstances surrounding the introduction of the statute of limitations bill and legislators' April 30 decision to withdraw it from the General Assembly's agenda were different. "I don't equate the two, period," said Michael Culhane, executive director of the Connecticut Catholic Conference. Changes to the statute of limitations were proposed by Sen. Mary Ann Handley, D-Manchester, and Rep. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, in part because of the case of the late Dr. George Reardon, a former physician with Hartford-based St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center. Reardon allegedly began abusing hundreds of children in the 1950s. Connecticut law currently gives childhood sex abuse victims until age 48 to file lawsuits -- something critics argue is unfair and should be changed. The proposal had already divided lawmakers before the bishops alerted parishioners in April. While legislative Republicans condemned last year's parish finances bill, GOP members helped the statute of limitations extension squeak past the Judiciary Committee in a 23-to-20 vote in late March. Meanwhile, some Democrats voted no, like Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, who was at the center of the 2009 firestorm after proposing the finances bill and has also clashed with the church over gay marriage. McDonald and many other members of the General Assembly are attorneys -- something Bye believes ultimately led to her bill's downfall. "As much as the church's opposition was a challenge, you have a legislature that's rife with lawyers, and a lot believe in statute of limitations being important," she said. "My perspective on this had little or nothing to do with the St. Francis Hospital case," McDonald said "The statute of limitations are rules of general application and an orderly justice system requires stability and predictably. And, in my opinion, it's a poor policy to change statute of limitations retroactively to address individual cases." The bill as originally drafted was broad and eliminated the statute of limitations for civil cases involving child sexual abuse. After the Catholic Church criticized it as targeting private and non-public institutions, proponents successfully amended the proposal, narrowly tailoring it to address the Reardon situation without actually mentioning the doctor or St. Francis Hospital. "They really did want the bill to go after St. Francis. They didn't want to open up everything," said Rep. T.R. Rowe, R-Trumbull, a devout Catholic who voted against the legislation on the Judiciary Committee. But, Rowe noted, that did not improve the situation. Culhane said the church was handed the "compromise" language at the last minute. "You can't compromise by yourself," he said. The bishops, in their letter, claimed the amended bill put all church assets at risk, undermining its mission and threatening parishes, schools and charities. "While this legislation is aimed directly at (St. Francis) it also targets the Catholic Church across the state and has potential disastrous fallout for all of us," read the letter. House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero, R-Norwalk, a vocal critic of the 2009 parish finances bill, said while a few legislators might not have been unhappy about St. Francis' Catholic affiliation, the bill's proponents were not motivated to go after the church. "If Dr. Reardon was employed by Norwalk Hospital they would have written the same bill," Cafero said. And while Handley said the bishops' opposition turned some of her constituents against the proposal, other legislators note it did not incite the same kind of anger that led thousands of Catholics to march on the capitol last year. "There was far less outrage from the Catholic community in my case than there was last year," said Sen. Michael McLachlan, R-Danbury, who voted against the statute of limitations bill on the Judiciary Committee. "It was too complicated an issue, unlike (the parish finances bill). That was easy to communicate to Catholics of Connecticut."
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