BishopAccountability.org
	Connecticut Abuse Survivors Working for Change in New York By Susan Campbell The Ctnow June 2, 2010 http://www.ctnow.com/news/connecticut/hc-campbell-catholicabuse-0602-20100602,0,1799320.column In 1984, Beth McCabe told her parents — now in their 80s — that a parish priest began abusing her when she was 11. Their heartbreaking guilt was compounded when McCabe's sister, who was also in the room, said quietly, "Me, too." On her Memorial Day visit with her parents, McCabe, co-leader of the Connecticut chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, told her father she'd be in Albany this week talking to New York senators about that state's Child Victims Act. She asked him what she should say, and he said, "Tell them to help us." So yesterday, McCabe did precisely that. This last legislative session, Connecticut lawmakers were unable to alter the statute of limitations law for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse — due mostly to extensive lobbying by the Roman Catholic Church, which feared a kick in the coffers. The church is hard at work in New York, as well, where state legislators have a chance to make things fair for some adult survivors. A bill before a Senate committee would — for one time only —- suspend the statute of limitations for such cases for a year, and then when that year is over, adult survivors would have until age 28 to bring a civil lawsuit. Meanwhile, it has surfaced that the Cheshire-based seminary operated by the Legionaries of Christ, the troubled Catholic order, has applied for a Hartford-area radio license with the Federal Communications Commission. When I called the Cheshire facility to ask about programming should the license be granted, a nice man said he wasn't aware of the application. When I left a phone message and sent e-mail to a contract representative listed on the application, I received no reply. Might this be part of the restructuring of the order? In May, the Vatican took control of the Legionaries over improprieties and worse from its founder, Marcial Maciel Degollado, who sexually abused young seminarians and fathered at least one child. Though allegations began surfacing decades ago, only in 2006 did the Vatican order Maciel, who died in '08, to stop practicing his ministry in public. You can't judge an order by its founder, but, as McCabe says, the Legionaries' application is "a little creepy." "The fact that they want to have the airwaves to pass on their word of God — their message — is kind of stunning to me," McCabe said. "I cringe. They have all these survivors out there, and they haven't been the most forthcoming organization, to put it mildly." Compare the treatment of Maciel to the treatment of Sister Margaret McBride, a Phoenix nun who in November 2009, as a member of a hospital's ethics committee, approved a life-saving abortion for a mother of four whose pregnancy would have killed her, according to her doctors. Last month, McBride was excommunicated. Amazing how quickly the church can act, isn't it? "Excommunication is the worst, in terms of canon law," said McCabe. "They don't do that to priests who rape and molest kids. They only defrock them. I don't understand it." Nor do I. Contact: scampbell@courant.com
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