NEW JERSEY
NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
August 19, 2018
By Ted Sherman
The wide-ranging report from a Pennsylvania grand jury exposing the long-hidden secrets of predator priests is sparking calls for a similar accounting in New Jersey.
New Jersey’s Catholic bishops, in the wake of the report, said the disclosures “show a heartbreaking departure from our fundamental belief in the dignity and value of every child.”
At the same time, the head of the state’s largest Catholic diocese has announced it will hire an outside firm to conduct an audit of alleged child abuse cases, although Cardinal Joseph Tobin of the Archdiocese of Newark has not committed to a release of any findings.
Sen. Joseph Vitale, who has pushed for years to eliminate New Jersey’s limits on civil lawsuits involving child sex abuse complaints against priests, said it is time for the attorney general to act, calling on the state to conduct an investigation similar to that in Pennsylvania.
“This issue has not gone away and victims continue to suffer,” said the Middlesex County Democrat.
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