US clergy sex abuse scandal fuels push to reform laws
BOSTON/NEW YORK The latest revelation of widespread child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy has given impetus to efforts by legislators, including a Pennsylvania lawmaker who has said he was raped by a priest as a child, to make it easier to prosecute such cases.
State Representative Mark Rozzi, 47, said he has fought for years to give people who say they were sexually assaulted as children more time to report such crimes to police in Pennsylvania, one of 14 US states considering Bills to extend the statute of limitations for such offences.
"We are going to get what the victims want," Mr Rozzi said in a telephone interview, a day after a grand jury found that 301 priests had sexually abused about 1,000 children over the past 70 years in Pennsylvania.
"You either support victims or you support paedophiles," he said.
The grand jury report was the latest revelation in a scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church since the Boston Globe in 2002 reported that priests had preyed on young boys and girls and that church leaders had covered it up.
LIMITATIONS
A statute of limitations is a law requiring that prosecutors bring a criminal case within a certain time frame.
The advocacy group Child USA said such statutes can block justice as children may not realise they were victims of sex crimes for decades.
Ms Amy Hill, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, the bishops' political arm in the state, declined to say whether bishops supported or opposed eliminating statutes of limitations.
"The time to discuss legislation will come later," she said.
"Our focus now is on improving ways that survivors and their families can recover."
In the past, the group had spoken out against the idea.
The national bishops' conference did not respond to a request for comment.
Some 41 states have eliminated statutes of limitations for criminally prosecuting child sex abuse.
Earlier this year, Michigan and Hawaii passed laws giving victims more time to report sexual assaults on children.
State legislators are ready to take up Mr Rozzi's Bill eliminating the limit, said Mr Steve Miskin, a spokesman for Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Representative Dave Reed.
"It is definitely something that he is looking to bring up sooner than later," Mr Miskin said. - REUTERS
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