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	Church in Colorado Seeks Fair Treatment under Law Archbishop Charles Chaput Speaks out about Need to Hold All Institutions Accountable for Abuse, Not Just Churches By Mary DeTurris Poust Our Sunday Visitor [Colorado] March 5, 2006 http://www.osv.com/periodicals/show-article.asp?pid=1249 Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., of Denver is leading a fight against efforts by legislators and trial attorneys to roll back the civil statute of limitations for sex-abuse cases in Colorado. In an email interview with Our Sunday Visitor, he spoke about his decision to vigorously fight what he sees as an unfair attack on the Church. OSV: What motivated you to take such a strong and public stance on the issue of statute of limitations? Archbishop Chaput: Statutes of limitations exist for very good reasons that have nothing to do with any Church. Memories fade. People die. Evidence gets old or lost. In general, changing statutes of limitation or making them too long is a bad idea, and most law enforcement professionals know that. Of course, certain crimes are so terrible, like murder, that no statute of limitation is warranted. Some people argue that the sexual abuse of minors is such a crime. Catholics don?t necessarily oppose that approach. Many Catholics are parents. They very rightly sympathize with victims and want to protect their own children. But the Catholic community does insist that all such laws, reporting timeframes and penalties apply equally to everyone and every institution, with no hidden escape clauses. Unfortunately, most state laws don?t treat public and private entities equally when it comes to claims arising from the sexual abuse of children. In almost every state, public officials use a combination of governmental immunity, very brief reporting timeframes and very low financial damage caps to make it difficult for anyone to sue public institutions ? including public schools. Religious and private institutions enjoy no such lop-sided protections. The evidence now shows that public schools are a major environment for adult sexual misconduct and abuse with minors. But most state laws effectively ignore that. In Colorado, under current (February 2006) law, a parent whose child is sexually abused in a public school is barred from suing the school because of governmental immunity. Even if a public school waived its immunity, which is unlikely, the child would have only 180 days to provide formal notice of a claim against the school. And even then, the maximum damages the child could recover are only $150,000. For the identical sexual abuse in a Catholic parish, there is no immunity, no notice requirement, no $150,000 damage cap, and a much longer statute of limitations. This is why the litigation industry ? and that?s exactly what it has become; a very lucrative revenue-producing industry ? targets private institutions and ignores the public sector. There?s no money in suing public schools. By the way -- and this is important -- keep in mind that we're really talking about two different law codes, criminal and civil, when discussing statutes of limitations. Criminal statutes of limitations can't be changed retroactively. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that as unconstitutional. They can be modified or abolished in a go-forward fashion, but that's a much less heated discussion. In contrast, some courts have ruled that civil statutes of limitations can be abolished or changed retroactively. Civil law also has a much lower threshold for proof. So what's happening is this. The litigation industry, which especially focuses on suing Catholic institutions, is working to change the civil laws across the country and impose massive financial damages on Catholic and other private institutions ? retroactively. They claim it's about justice, but it?s very hard to see why it would be ?just? for innocent Catholic families today to have their community crippled because of the actions of evil or sick individuals 25 to 60 years ago. OSV: Yours is the first diocese to uncover and reveal data about public school sexual abuse. How did that come about? Why is it so important to what's happening in the legislatures today? Archbishop Chaput: We?re not the first. People have known this information for a long time. Nobody in the Church has wanted to highlight it out of a misguided sense of propriety. This is a mistake. As Catholics, we have a very serious obligation to respect the suffering of sexual abuse victims, provide support for their healing and pray for them. We can never allow ourselves to forget that some priests did evil things that caused terrible pain to innocent people. We also have the duty to create safe environments for our young people in every Church-related environment, today and in the future. We work hard to do that. But it?s also true that two-thirds of the children from practicing Catholic families in Colorado attend public schools. What about them? We have the same obligation to help protect them. More than six months ago we brought our concerns about sexual abuse in public institutions to one of our leading Denver daily newspapers. We asked them to simply explore the facts and compare patterns of clergy sexual abuse with the same patterns among educators and other professions. They ignored the information. It didn?t fit with their story line. So we decided to make the facts known ourselves. By the way, one of the teachers in one of our Catholic schools has a mentally disabled minor son in a public school. Disabled children are up to 10 times more likely to be sexually abused as minors because of their disabilities and their more vulnerable condition. She was watching the news one night last summer when a plaintiffs? attorney demanded $10 million in damages from the archdiocese. She asked a simple question. She asked how much money she could sue for if her son were sexually abused in her Catholic parish where he serves Mass, and then compared that to what she could sue for if he was sexually abused at his public school. The more she researched the scope of public school educator abuse and the inequity in state laws and financial settlements, the more upset she got. So will anyone who spends the time to know the facts. OSV: How much were you influenced by what has happened in California, Portland and Spokane in terms of Church reaction to revisions to the statute of limitations and allegations of sexual abuse? Archbishop Chaput: All three cases are examples of bad laws and bad court decisions with a massively prejudicial impact on Catholics. California Senate Bill 1779, which is creating financial havoc for Catholics in that state, was drafted and lobbied for by one of the main plaintiffs? attorneys now financially benefiting from the law. If that strikes you as strange and unethical, you?re asking the right questions. OSV: Can you reassure people that this strong stance is not an effort to gloss over the tragedy of sexual abuse? Archbishop Chaput: Anyone who reviews what the Archdiocese of Denver has done and said, again and again, over the last 15 years will know that we take this issue very seriously. Our concern for victims is heartfelt. We want them to come forward, and we?re committed to helping them. We?re determined to do everything we can to prevent sexual abuse in the future. That won?t change. OSV: How are people in your archdiocese reacting to your position on these issues? Have you received any feedback from the public in general or from parishioners? Archbishop Chaput: We?ve had strongly positive feedback from our people. Most Catholics are eager to help victims and very sympathetic with their suffering. Most Catholics are also tired of being pillaged by certain plaintiffs? attorneys who get the law rewritten for their own profit. Incidentally, we?ve had some wonderful backing from other Churches. The Greek Orthodox and various evangelical communities in Colorado have been very supportive. They understand exactly what?s at stake for their own communities and wider issues of religious discrimination. OSV: Is anti-Catholicism at the root of some of these proposals in Colorado and across the country? Archbishop Chaput: Some of these legal proposals come from a genuine desire to help victims. We need to remember that, even when the proposed legislation is bad. But yes, there?s a new and peculiar kind of anti-Catholicism at work in many of these situations. Some of the worst anti-Catholics are angry, disaffected Catholics. Others are people who don?t like the Church for her witness on abortion or contraception or immigration or the death penalty; the list of grievances is endless. Sexual abuse can become a convenient cover for a lot of unrelated hostility. OSV: Why do you think some bishops and Catholic Conferences have been reluctant to fight back this hard? Archbishop Chaput: Guilt, confusion, a desire to take what they perceive to be ?the high road.? Fear has played a part, too. Maybe all these things have been justified in their time. But what?s happening now ? the systematic dismantling and pillaging of the Catholic community nationwide ? is not ?justice.? And unless Catholics wake up right now and push back on behalf of their Church, their parishes and the religious future of their children, the pillaging will continue. Bishops have a duty to protect the heritage and patrimony of the Catholic community that laypeople have worked so hard through the decades to build up, often at huge personal sacrifice. As a bishop, that means I have an obligation ? a serious duty I can?t avoid -- both to help the victims, and to defend innocent Catholics today from being victimized because of earlier sins in which they played no part.
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