NEW JERSEY
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Barbara Boyer
Inquirer Staff Writer
Lisa Shanahan says she was molested at age 10 by a priest at St. Anthony of Padua Church in Hammonton and has kept quiet about it for decades, alone in her suffering.
She decided to break her silence after learning there were two victims before her.
Now 43, Shanahan has sued the Camden diocese, demanding it reveal why the now-defrocked priest, Thomas Harkins, was permitted to stay in ministry even after the church hierarchy learned of his alleged abuse and, she claims, sent him for therapy.
“They sacrificed me,” says Shanahan, a business executive living in North Carolina.
Though the suit she filed in May is active, it appears vulnerable to dismissal as the diocese argues it was filed past the state’s statute of limitations.
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