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	Why Is Sd Protecting Child Abusers and Their Enablers? Dakota Women October 28, 2011 http://dakotawomen.com/2011/10/26/why-is-sd-protecting-child-abusers-and-their-enablers/ Obviously, there are plenty of issues that divide us politically. Plenty of things we can disagree on. But there are a few issues that I assumed all sane people were on the same page about. Like people who rape children. That seems pretty clear to me. We all hate those people, right? We want to see them locked up. We want to see them pay. And anyone who tried to protect those disgusting assholes — we want them to pay, too, right? Well, apparently not. I have no shortage of criticism for the South Dakota state legislature, but I guess I never would’ve expected that they would actually go so far as to protect child rapists. But that’s just what they did, and so far, the courts have followed suit. In 2010, attorney Steve Smith of Chamberlain who represents St. Joseph’s Indian School, presented HB 1104 to the state legislature. The bill in its final version reads: Any civil action based on intentional conduct brought by any person for recovery of damages for injury suffered as a result of childhood sexual abuse shall be commenced within three years of the act alleged to have caused the injury or condition, or three years of the time the victim discovered or reasonably should have discovered that the injury or condition was caused by the act, whichever period expires later. However, no person who has reached the age of forty years may recover damages from any person or entity other than the person who perpetrated the actual act of sexual abuse. There were no opponent witnesses in committee hearings in either chamber. No sexual assault victims organizations, no children’s right organizations, no psychologists or counselors, nothing. Smith’s version of events were apparently all our legislators needed to hear to effectively silence scores of victims of heinous sexual abuse. Smith told lawmakers, “I’d like to describe that this present statute of limitations we have in effect is in essence the California Lawyers’ Welfare bill. They are flying out here; they are recruiting plaintiffs, and during the course of these recruitments they are finding numerous people willing to say they are abused … We have to recognize that what these lawyers are doing from out of state is trying to destroy and they are not trying to create and heal. … These lawyers like to fly into Sioux Falls in their private jet, get off a press conference on the Cathedral steps and talk about what’s wrong, get back on the jet and fly back home and then leave us in ashes here in South Dakota.” Smith, of course, didn’t just come to the legislature as a concerned citizen. His client was being sued. A prolific abuser worked at St. Joseph’s until sometime in the 1970s, after which he was moved to Detroit and Washington, DC, leaving more victims in his wake. And while Smith paints a picture of out of state lawyers promising money to Native Americans to make wild allegations of abuse by long-dead clergy with no evidence, the facts don’t really support that conclusion. Here’s an article about the press conference Smith makes reference to. Imagine my surprise when one of these jet-setting California lawyers turned out to be one of my former USD Law classmates — who grew up in South Dakota about 30 miles from me. So much for the greedy outsiders. Additionally, many of the perpetrators were still living when the cases were originally filed, not to mention those responsible for covering up their acts. As to the actual evidence of abuse, you’d think that if it was weak Smith and other attorneys representing church entities would be confident that the plaintiffs wouldn’t be able to meet their burden of proof. Simply being able to file a lawsuit doesn’t mean you’ll get anywhere with it. But my sources tell me the evidence is far from weak, so the Chuch had to find another way to duck responsibility — by making sure no jury would ever even get to hear the case. While a few astute lawmakers noted that victims of sexual assault rarely come forward right away, no attempt was made to investigate the consequences of setting this strict statute of limitations. If there had been, they might’ve discovered that the Catholic Church’s own study indicates that half of all victims over 40 have not come forward. And since most boarding school abuse in South Dakota took place before 1980, the choice of 40 years old effectively legislatively forgives all boarding school abuse in the state. But the majority of legislators didn’t need more information. Sen. Gene Abdallah claimed it was a matter of “personal responsibility” (for the abused — not, of course, the abuser and their protectors). And in the same hearing, he also talked about joking around with his friend, the Monsignor. The bill passed overwhelmingly, with bipartisan support. Stephanie Woodard at the Huffington post has done a fantastic job of following the case that inspired Smith’s bill. Read all about it here and here. Despite the work of of the victim’s attorneys, HB 1104 was found to apply to their case, even though it was passed well after their suits were filed with the express purpose of getting them thrown out of court. Earlier this month, attorneys for the victims and attorneys for the Catholic Diocese, Oblate Sisters, and Blue Cloud Abbey made oral arguments in front of our state’s Supreme Court, forced to make their case under the unjust law passed in 2010. The issue now becomes when the victims were put ‘on notice’ of their abuse. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that the court will go for it. They keep asking for evidence of injury (FOR SEXUAL ABUSE), but the lifelong suffering experienced by the victims is basically being used as proof that they were ‘on notice.’ While I’m not a Catholic, I have many friends who have stuck with the Church despite their differences with conservative doctrine. I admire their commitment to fighting for their faith and their culture. However, the widespread child molestation that is rampant in the church and the continuing cover up of that abuse by church authorities, make it difficult for me to understand how anyone can continue to stand by the Catholic Church as an institution. If this level of protecting and enabling child rape was being done in my name and with my money, I’d have a problem with it. The financial contributions and political power of the faithful have been used to cover up the acts of CHILD RAPISTS, to move them to new places where they have easy access to new victims, to provide for their comfortable retirement, and to defend the people who have created this system, both in the courtroom and, as we have seen, preemptively in our lawmaking bodies. The Catholic Church has teams of lawyers. They have a full-time lobbyist in Pierre, and many many more in other state capitals and in Washington. And is it any wonder? An investigation of a single Catholic seminary in California which supplies many of the priests for the West Coast found that: 10 percent of graduates ordained have been accused of molesting minors. 30 percent of the graduating classes of 1966 and 1972 have been accused of molesting minors. 11.5 percent of the LA priests active in 1983 were subsequently reported for abuse. 75 percent of all the LA parishes have had at least one priest-abuser on its staff and some parishes had 5 to 8 on their staff. Abuse accusations have affected more than 95% of dioceses and approximately 60% of religious communities in the U.S. — that’s over 4000 Catholic priests and deacons making up approximately 4% of priests and deacons in active ministry between 1950 and 2002. Reports have found that thousands of children were abused in Catholic institutions in Ireland, with evidence of victims beginning in the 1930s and continuing as recently as 2009. News articles, books, and films have chronicled how big this issue is. And responsibility goes all the way to the top. Pope John Paul II may be on his way to sainthood, but many believe he protected accused priests and those who covered up their crimes. Current Pope Benedict XVI, who had previously been tasked with investigating the epidemic of sex abuse in the church, has faced similar criticism. Disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law, for example, wasn’t punished for his attempts to bury horrific instances of child rape by priests — he was installed in a Basilica in Rome. Due to the nature of mission parishes and boarding schools on reservations, Native people have been particularly vulnerable to clergy abuse. PBS’s Frontline examine the particular case of abuse in Alaska in an episode called The Silence. Former South Dakota priest Donald Kettler is Bishop there. Bishop Kettler’s willingness to meet with victims, to listen, and to apologize is in stark contrast to the minimizing, covering up, and silencing that’s gone on in so many cases of clergy abuse. As a result of the widespread abuse in Alaska, the Diocese has had to declare bankruptcy. But in the end, if that is the worst consequence for the machine that robbed hundreds of children of their innocence, their faith in God, and in many cases, their future, isn’t that just? While the racial motivations behind this law are obvious and a general distrust of Native victims certainly aided in its passage, the results are going to affect all sexual assault victims. Former KELO reporter Jolene Loetscher recently gave a TED talk in Sioux Falls about her own rape as a young woman If her candor makes uncomfortable, it should. The South Dakota Legislature may want to make this all about money, but the fact is, in the end, these are real people — real children — who have had horrible things done to them. Loetscher didn’t try to commit suicide immediately after her rape. It took years for that violation to come to the surface, and years for her to deal with what happened to her. In a follow up article to her talk, she expressed a hope “to see South Dakota law allow adults to pursue child sexual-abuse lawsuits. Without those, she says, abusers are told it’s permissible to abuse the youngest of children.” Unfortunately, it appears the lawmakers in our state are committed to taking it in the opposite direction.
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