BishopAccountability.org
	Excluding Public Schools Reveals Bias By Jerry Stremel The Coloradoan March 20, 2006 http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060320/ OPINION04/603200314/1014 A few years ago, people would respond to a course of action by saying, "Sounds like a plan." Some Colorado legislators have a plan of hostile discrimination against the Catholic community in Colorado. I am referring to House Bill 1088, House Bill 1090 and Senate Bill 143.These bills will remove the statute of limitations for allowing lawsuits in cases about sexual abuse of minors. They will apply to Catholic schools and other private institutions but not to public institutions, e.g. public schools. Every one of these bills unfairly burdens religious institutions and private institutions and unfairly ignores sexual abuse in public schools and public institutions. This is bad public policy and bad public law. The legislators in question have accused the archbishop of Denver, Charles J. Chaput, of being "irrational" in his protest to the above-mentioned bills. What is actually irrational is to ignore the research about sexual abuse of minors. Professor Charol Shakeshaft of Hofstra University, a national expert on educator sexual abuse, has conducted research about the sexual abuse of minors in Colorado public and Catholic schools. Her research reveals the following rational statistics about sexual abuse. • Some 760,000 students are enrolled in grades K-12 in Colorado public schools and 56,000 in private/independent schools; of these, 54,000 public school students are likely to have been sexually exploited in a physical manner by an adult employed in the school by the time they reach their senior year of high school. • Adding pornography, genital exposure and other types of sexual misconduct, the number of statistically probable victims increases to 77,000 public school students. • The number of Colorado public school students who experience educator sexual misconduct is larger than the number of all students who attend private/independent schools in Colorado and four times the number of Colorado students in Catholic schools. In a report prepared for the U.S. Department of Education, Shakeshaft suggests that 6.7 percent to 9.6 percent of public school children across the country have been sexually abused or harassed. The Department of Justice reported in 1998 there were 103,600 cases of sexual misconduct in the national public schools, and most of them involved a teacher. The upshot is that the evidence shows that public institutions, including public schools, are an environment for sexual abuse of minors by adults. However, under Colorado law, the financial and legal liability for sexual abuse in public schools is drastically reduced. For the record, two-thirds of the children of practicing Catholic families in Colorado attend public schools. Do they do not have the right to be assured that sexual abuse will be stopped and they will be protected? What is done to victims is despicable and a heinous crime. They deserve compassion. For the past 15 years, the Archdiocese of Denver has been proactive in ministering to such victims and is working to ensure that everyone in the church is safe. Millions of dollars are being drained from the church in sexual abuse lawsuits. Money is given by fellow and innocent Catholics for charitable works. What is really sad is that true victims and false-witness deceivers are goaded by depraved lawyers to bleed many millions of dollars from the body of Christ. Money extracted from the church will not heal victims. Reconstituted filthy lucre is not therapy! There is only one solution, some psychiatrists not withstanding, that can pull out the sword of pain and anger that has been plunged into victims' hearts. It is loving forgiveness. This is what has been prescribed in the New Testament teaching. The legislators must not be goaded by a few politicians with a secularist agenda. Their discriminating vote is a faintly veiled hostility against the Catholic community. They must expand or amend the bills to protect all children. Tell your representatives to vote against the proposed bills or correctly amend them. You can make a difference. Jerry Stremel lives in Fort Collins.
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