Efforts to change limits on abuse cases called prejudicial to church

Published: 2006-04-25

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Efforts to revise or eliminate the statute of limitations for civil suits in child sex abuse cases are prejudicial to the Catholic Church and harmful to the cause of justice, said Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput. He said that plaintiffs' attorneys and victims' groups in several states "often work together" to pressure lawmakers to relax the statute of limitations so that old cases can be reopened and new suits demanding huge damages can be filed. "Communities of faith have an obligation to generously help the people who have been hurt by their members, past or present," he said. "But they also have a right to maintain their mission of serving others and to be protected from predatory judgments designed to gut their resources and identity." The archbishop expressed his views in an article in the May issue of First Things, a monthly journal published in New York by the Institute on Religion and Public Life. The article came at a time when the Colorado Legislature was considering several bills to relax the state's statute of limitations for civil suits to allow the reopening of old cases.

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