Their Standard Operating Procedure is still in effect…

Facing lawsuits, Archdiocese of DC challenges law empowering abuse survivors

friendlyatheist.com

More than a month after a Maryland law eliminated the statute of limitations for survivors of child sexual abuse, the Archdiocese of Washington (D.C.) is arguing in court that the law is illegal.

The law in question capped how much money a survivor could receive—based on whether they were suing a public institution, a private one, or an individual—but it allowed those who had suffered abuse decades earlier to receive justice.

Just before the law went into effect, the Archdiocese of Baltimore declared bankruptcy, a move that would allow certain parts of the Church to continue functioning while limiting the damages the archdiocese would inevitably face. (The move also puts an expiration date on when people could sue the Church for damages, nullifying that aspect of the new law.)

And now the Archdiocese of Washington, which is also affected by the change, is arguing in court (in two separate cases) that the new law violates the Maryland Constitution. If they’re successful with the challenge, it could halt a class-action lawsuit brought by survivors of sexual abuse.

The basic argument is that, by allowing survivors to sue their abusers long after the crimes took place, it violates due process.

It’s important to remember why the Catholic Church is trying so hard to avoid accountability. Earlier this year, Attorney General Brown released his office’s 463-page report investigating sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The four-year project, which was the result of a Grand Jury investigation, found that over 600 children (“but the number is likely far higher”) were abused by 156 predators working with the Catholic Church since the 1940s. Most of the predators were now dead, but some of them (redacted in the report) were still alive and not previously suspected of any wrongdoing. The names of Church officials who helped cover up their alleged crimes were also redacted in the public report. In many cases, the abuse continued even after survivors came forward with their stories. Because Church officials didn’t take immediate action, the predators had a green light to continue abusing little kids.

With the release of that report, and the passage of the new law, there was hope that many survivors of abuse would finally realize there was a path forward to file claims against their abusers and the institution that harbored them.

We shouldn’t be surprised that both archdioceses are doing everything they can to prevent survivors from getting the justice they deserve. They’re putting far more thought into how they can play defense than they ever did to remove the problematic Catholic leaders in the first place.

I’ve said this before, but the true punishment for the Church won’t come from any of the lawsuits. The institution will only suffer if and when there’s a mass exodus of worshipers who call themselves Catholic. The people who still attend or support the Catholic Church with their time or money are complicit in their actions. It’s not too late to break ties. Tradition is no excuse to prop up a criminal enterprise.

And remember that there are five radical Catholics on the corrupted Supreme Court who just can’t wait to strike this law down.