PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call
Bill WhiteContact Reporter
Go to the Philadelphia Archdiocese website, and you’ll immediately be confronted by a pop-up:
“Click here to send a message to your legislator opposing HB 1947.”
We are in the midst of a broad Catholic Church lobbying campaign to squash House Bill 1947, which passed the House in April and would eliminate the statute of limitations for criminal cases of child sexual abuse and extend the statute for civil cases until the victim reaches age 50, retroactively, from the present age 30.
This latest effort to persuade Catholics to pressure legislators comes as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares for a hearing Monday on the bill’s constitutionality and gets nearer to a promised vote.
Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput and others have been encouraging Catholic pastors to read or distribute lobbying materials at their church services. This spring, I criticized a similar effort by Allentown Bishop John Barres, whose letter opposing HB 1947 was inserted into church bulletins to the dismay of some local parishioners.
One of Chaput’s letters and other lobbying materials also are being distributed to parents of parochial school children, which prompted this email response from Gretchen Dahlkemper of South Philadelphia:
“I am horrified, disgusted, and sick to my stomach that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia instructed its principals to send the below information to the parents who have chosen to send our children to receive a Catholic education. I send my 7-year-old boy each day to the school expecting the principal and the teachers to protect him and guide him — not to shield the pedophiles that were for decades abusing boys, just like my 7-year-old, with the protection and systematic collusion of the Catholic Church.
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