NEW YORK
New York Daily News
BY
ARTHUR MCCAFFREY
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Saturday, June 18, 2016
Does a verdict without a sentence distort justice? Such a verdict was reached in Pennsylvania recently when the grand jury report on sexual abuse by clergy in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown — where hundreds of boys were abused by dozens of priests over a 70-year span — found “the acts of the predator priests and their enabling bishops . . . to be criminal.”
“However,” the report continued, “they cannot be prosecuted at this time. The statute of limitations for many of the loathsome and criminal actions detailed in this report has expired. In some limited cases the unnamed victim or victims are too deeply traumatized to testify in a court of law.”
Yet such hard evidence of real crimes proven but not prosecutable has yet to change the hearts and minds of political leaders in Pennsylvania or New York. Despite a valiant effort by this newspaper to shame them into action, Albany politicians once again chose safety over bravery, snubbing serious legislation to advantage victims of childhood sexual abuse.
Faced with this kind of legal impotence in at least two states, where do we turn for justice? Not to the Catholic Church. A year ago, Pope Francis raised our hopes when he proposed establishing a new Vatican tribunal to hold bishops accountable for complicity in criminal abuse.
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