Pa.'s Attorney General Calls for No Statute of Limitations in Wake of Clergy Abuse Report

NBC10 Staff
October 12, 2018

https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Catholic-Clergy-Abuse-Statute-of-Limitations-Shapiro-497195891.html

After the release of a grand jury report detailing some of the alleged sexual abuse of children by members of Pennsylvania’s Catholic clergy, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro joined advocates for victims of clergy abuse and other elected officials to call change for an end to the statute of limitations for child sex abuse.

"I want to be clear, we unearthed an organized criminal enterprise here in Pennsylvania, for now, they got away with some of it," Shapiro said while calling for action now.

Pa. AG Calls for No Time Limit in Clergy Sex Abuse Cases

Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele and Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub joined Shapiro and victim advocates to encourage the state legislature to pass reforms to the period of time allowed to pursue sexual abuse cases.

"I stand with these survivors," Shapiro said.

Eliminating the restrictions on how far back allegations can go is "fair," "right" and "just," Shapiro said.

He wants the legislature to lift the statute of limitations so that civil cases can be pursued in court in decades-old clergy abuse cases.

The Pennsylvania House has voted to give child sex abuse victims, in cases now too old to pursue, two years to file lawsuits. But Senate Republican leaders are balking.

Shapiro, a Democrat, says he doesn't know how any lawmaker who read the grand jury report could vote against changing the law.

Friday's event follows a roundtable last month and a lawsuit by parents of children in the Roman Catholic Church and survivors of alleged sexual abuse by clergy that targets all eight of Pennsylvania dioceses and their bishops to compel them to release information about allegations in an unrelated action.

The damning, years-long grand jury report released by Shapiro in August implicates hundreds of Catholic clergy members in six of Pennsylvania’s dioceses of sexually abusing thousands of young victims over many decades.

"The Church, you have to understand, used a sophisticated, coordinated, systematic approach to covering up this abuse," Shapiro said. "With a stated purpose, often times, of shielding these predators from the arm of law enforcement, of moving them to some other place for a long enough period of time that law enforcement wouldn't know about it and wouldn't be bale to bring a case."

"They took advantage of those laws in order to protect these predators," Shapiro said.

Lurid details released throughout more than 1,300 pages include rape, abortions, confessions and cover-ups. It took the grand jury more than two years to fully investigate the abuse allegations against more than 300 priests contained in the sometimes explicit report.

The grand jury investigated dioceses in Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton, which together minister to more than 1.7 million Catholics. About 25 percent of people throughout the state identify as Catholic, according to the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference.

The scathing grand jury report marks the most sweeping look into sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in the United States, Shapiro said at the time of the report's release.

NBC10 and Telemundo 62 were among the news organizations that joined a court case pressing for the report's release. Read it here (warning: explicit and disturbing content).