UNITED STATES
Erie Times-News
Editorial
The Erie County Courthouse at 140 W. Sixth St. and the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte are about 200 miles apart. The Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, in turn, is approximately 200 miles from Bellefonte. But long distances don’t matter. Throughout Pennsylvania, many eyes are focused on high-profile courtroom cases alleging sexual abuse of youngsters, and the price that is paid when such travesties occur.
On June 1, a federal jury in U.S. District Court in Erie awarded $8,654,769 to Kenny Bryan, 20, who sued two Erie County Office of Children and Youth social workers. The lawsuit claimed that Bryan’s civil rights were violated when the social workers place a sexually aggressive 14-year-old foster child with the family that adopted Bryan, a former foster child. This lawsuit was about the “very broken child-welfare system” that harmed Bryan, said his adoptive mother, Bonnie Bryan, after the verdict. …
The Associated Press reported that the Philadelphia archdiocese spent $11.6 million in legal fees in the last two fiscal years, most of it on priest abuse sex cases. Additional money has been spent on a criminal case in which one priest was charged with raping a 14-year-old boy and another was charged with helping to cover up sexual assaults of children. “It’s a great sadness that people were hurt and that the costs have been so great for the people of Philadelphia,” Archbishop Charles Chaput said.
For victims, families and society, the true toll of sexual abuse can never be measured in dollars spent in the courtroom. We can only hope that these high-profile cases raise awareness about sexual abuse, perhaps preventing such trauma from occurring in the first place, and then also helping professionals learn how to help victims heal.
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