Speaker says church shouldn't oppose extending statute of limitations

Published: 2007-11-01

NEW YORK (CNS) -- The church opens itself to charges of hypocrisy when it opposes extending the statute of limitations for bringing clergy sexual abuse claims, according to attorney Charles Molineaux. He called it an "inversion of episcopal priorities" that places concern for property and the institutional church ahead of concern for souls. Molineaux, an international commercial arbitrator, addressed a panel on the clergy sexual abuse scandal Oct. 27 at the 15th annual meeting of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists at St. John's University School of Law in Queens. Molineaux is a graduate of the law school. The Oct. 26-27 meeting drew some 450 registrants and featured more than 70 panels with 200 speakers. Among the speakers were Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver; William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights; Stephen Krason of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, who is the society's president; and Father Richard John Neuhaus, editor of First Things.

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