The chutzpah of the Catholic Church

In the State of New York the Catholic Church has been fighting against the passage of the Child Victims Act of Assemblywoman Margaret Markey “with all their hearts, with all their souls and with all their might”. The proposed legislation extends the statute of limitations on sex crimes against children and opens a one-year window for adult victims to sue their childhood perpetrators with no statute of limitation at all. Aside from granting the victims the opportunity to receive justice and some level of compensation for their suffering, similar window legislation has proven to be the best way to help identify scores of sexual predators that were unknown to law enforcement in both California and Delaware.

The Church has postulated a conspiracy theory that sees the sole purpose of allowing adult survivors of child sexual abuse to sue their molesters as a way for enemies of the Church to do it harm.

The Church should be ashamed of itself after the publicly humiliating exposure of its tolerance of perverted behaviour by pedophile priests, and its cynical cover up and intimidation of victims it has perpetrated on a system-wide level. It truly gives a new definition to the word “Chutzpah”, for the Catholic Church to speak out in any but a humble and apologetic tone.

A grand jury in Long Island, New York, for example charged the Archdiocese there of stalling victims of abuse from pressing charges until the statute of limitations was up, so that the Church would not have to answer for the molestation perpetrated by their priests. In Los Angeles, Archbishop Mahony is being investigated by the FBI for the crime of placing priests who were known to have molested children in the past in positions of authority over children without notifying the children’s parents.

Aside from the audacity of an organisation claiming to speak for God placing their financial concerns over the welfare of victims, the tactics used in defending their “assets” by the Church have been extremely “un-Christian”. In Brooklyn, Bishop Nicholas Dimarzio has, in a Machiavellian threat, warned legislators that if the Child Victims Act passes, he will shut down churches in the precincts of those who voted against it.

Ironically, given the Church’s record of aiding and abetting pedophile priests, legislators who care for the safety of the children in their precinct would do well to view this outcome as a positive promise and not as an unwanted threat.

Child sexual abuse, however, knows no religion and is certainly not a plague that is limited to the Catholic Church, and therefore the Church is hurting children of all faiths when they use their considerable political power in New York to deny justice to survivors who have been abused. While the bill was in fact never intended originally by anyone to be “anti-Catholic”, once the Catholic Church has shamefully turned anti-children, they have made it so, because they have once again become actively pro-molesters and the bill is most definitely anti-molesters.

As a Jew, I cannot say I am totally shocked at the lack of concern by representatives of the Catholic Church over the past several decades (and indeed centuries) about the brutalising of innocent children by adults in power.

After all, this is a religious institution that only 60 years ago turned a blind eye to the wanton murder of one million innocent Jewish children in countries that were mostly dominated by practitioners of the Catholic religion.

Although the last Pope did “apologise” to Jewish survivors (the children are not with us to have heard it), not so much has really changed in the Church's sense of morality or sensitivity for child victims. This was recently on display by Pope Benedict’s appointing as a bishop a priest who openly denies that the Holocaust even happened and that Jewish children were gassed to death, and by his pursuing “sainthood” for Pope Pius XII, labeled by historians as “Hitler’s Pope”.

For those children who survived the death camps to have the Church once again treat their feelings like so much political nuisance, reminds them of how little they can trust their Catholic “friends” at a time of need.

But adding insult to injury, in New York, home to many Jewish children as well as Catholic, the Church now seeks to deny all children the right to their day in court when they suffer their own private Holocaust-like trauma of rape, sodomy and sexual molestation. It has been shown repeatedly by psychologists that for many victims of childhood sexual trauma, it often takes growing up into adulthood to even remember, yet alone understand the nature of the harm inflicted on them. Sometimes symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder are only manifested once the victim has children of his or her own. And even for those who have suffered from symptoms for years and have had their lives forever damaged, many need years of professional help to regain the emotional strength it takes to confront their victimisers.

To withhold access to restitution for their medical treatment as well as for emotional pain and suffering, is to tell victims of all faiths and ethnicities that their pain is not our concern and their cries will continue to fall on deaf ears. All this from the "religion of love". Apparently the Church, once again, demands from its victims that they "turn the other cheek", while the Church itself aggressively continues to protect itself from being exposed for the destruction of lives that it has caused.

Unfortunately, as a Jew, I am also ashamed at witnessing history repeating itself with the neglectful behaviour of many of my own people. While almost all mainstream Orthodox Jewish groups such as the Rabbinical Council of America, The Rabbinical Alliance of America, The Jewish Board of Advocates for Children, the Orthodox Union, and Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services, and our two Orthodox Assemblymen Dov Hikind and Speaker Sheldon Silver have joined Protestant groups, Catholic victims advocacy groups such as the Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests and Voices of the Faithful, and other non-denominational child advocate groups in lobbying for the Markey bill, our brothers and sisters of the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist branches of Judaism have been deafeningly silent about the spiritual holocaust for children in New York, much as they were during the Holocaust of Jews in Europe. While these branches of Judaism have impressive records in America of social activism, when it comes to standing up for victims of abuse their voices have not been heard.

To be clear, in traditional Torah Judaism, based on halachic law, there is no legal precedent for statutes of limitations on crimes of violence or harming another, neither in civil nor in criminal law. While not speaking directly to the issue of time constraints on claims of damages, one of the most famous dictums in the tort laws of the Talmud states "Adam Muad Le'olam". A person is always responsible (for the damage he/she does). Furthermore, every Jewish person has a biblical obligation to speak out for children’s safety: “Thou shall not stand by idly thy neighbour’s blood.”

Legislators of all religious backgrounds would be wise remember that one out of five or your constituents has been the victim of sexual abuse before the age of 18, although many have not been vocal about it. When facing your own conscience and being tempted to play politics with the lives of innocent children, remember that NO God, not the God believed in by Jews, Christians or Muslims, (and not even the God that atheists reject), could possibly countenance the violation of innocent children. We must all come together in support of our children and pray that the One Merciful God, will in His infinite wisdom, truth and justice, grant our legislature the common sense and the courage needed to enact both the Child Victims Act and other legislation to protect the children He has entrusted to us.