Misguided Politician of the Week: NYS Assemblywoman Markey

On Friday, March 8th of this year, New York State Assemblywoman Margaret Markey will hold a rally in Manhattan, New York re-introducing The Child Victims Act. She and the bill co-sponsors hope to: "Eliminate statute of limitations in criminal and civil actions and revive civil actions for certain sex offenses committed against a child less than eighteen years of age." Sounds good, right? Did you notice that the quoted memo mentions 'certain sex offenses' will be included? Are there some sex offenses are healthy for children, or is there something else being left unsaid? I digress.

NYS Assemblywoman Markey
District 30

First the back-story. This isn't the first time the bill has been in the news. The bill has been presented several  times before with the last attempt failing in 2009. What Assemblywoman Markey fails to mention is that the bill affects only private institutions and schools, not public ones. For example, a child sexually assaulted in a public school by a teacher will not have the same window of time in which to file a claim as a child sexually assaulted by a teacher in a private institution or school. Why is that? The Assemblywoman has a history of being heavy-handed toward the Catholic Church, yet ignores the continual sexual assaults against minors in the public school system. It is also too difficult to change the laws in regard to public schools because of an immeasurable length of red tape. 

                                                                                                             Read what the New York State Catholic Conference has to say about it HERE. 

Read the bill in its entirety HERE.     

Bill Donohue

Read what Bill Donohue from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has to say HERE. 

Supreme Court allows sex abuse case against Vatican to proceed :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Supreme Court allows sex abuse case against Vatican to proceed :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Washington D.C., Jun 28, 2010 / 12:12 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Today the U.S. Supreme Court declined an immunity appeal by the Holy See in a case that attempts to sue the Vatican for transferring a priest accused of sexually abusing a minors several decades ago. The ruling by the Supreme Court allows the case to move forward.

An anonymous plaintiff from Oregon filed suit against the Vatican in 2002 after Fr. Andrew Ronan, an Irish priest with a history of sexually abusing minors, was transferred from Ireland to the U.S. and eventually moved to the Portland, Oregon. According to Reuters, Fr. Ronan died in 1992.

The plaintiff claims he was abused by Fr. Ronan several times in the mid 1960s and has filed suit against the Vatican, charging that the Catholic Church is responsible for transferring the priest and conspiring to cover up the allegations.

Jeffrey Lena, the U.S. attorney for the Vatican, has argued that the plaintiff has not provided evidence that the Vatican moved the priest or had control over him. Several U.S. bishops have also stated in the media that it is the local bishop who has control over priests, not the Vatican.

In a move to have a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated, the Holy See attempted to claim immunity under a U.S. Law – the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 – which helps prevent foreign states from being sued in court.

However, the appeals court cited exceptions to the law and charged that there was sufficient evidence that Fr. Ronan was an employee of the Vatican under Oregon law, thus allocating responsibility to the Holy See.

Another development in the case came in May when the U.S. Solicitor General’s office submitted an amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals misapplied the Sovereign Immunities Act.

The brief also claimed that the priest’s sexual abuse was also “not within the scope of the priest’s employment,” according to the solicitor general’s office, which advised the case be vacated and remanded back to the appellate court.

Despite these arguments, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the 9th Circuit ruling to stand and declined to rule on the Vatican's immunity appeal. The decision by the nation's highest court was made without comment. The case will now proceed in U.S. District Court under the Oregon standards of employment.

When a Juvenile is a Sex Offender

You may be asking yourself what this topic is doing on a Catholic blog--and that is a very good question. As a volunteer in our Catholic school, my husband and I had to take the course Protecting God's Children conducted by VIRTUS. Every single adult within our diocese who has any contact with children in the Catholic Church or Church operated organizations and schools must complete the training. This is a good thing, a very good thing. In a previous job, I was a state mandated reporter and had to take the state provided training. In that one we were basically instructed on signs to look for and how to report abuse. The VIRTUS program is very different; we are to know how to prevent it from happening in the first place. As part of the program, we must complete monthly online training bulletins and answer questions which follow.

I just received the training for this month and the topic is Managing the Child Sex Offender who is a Student. It raises some interesting things that I have not considered previously. I once reported a child for having abused his little brother in ways unimaginable while I worked for the Head Start program. I felt horrible doing so, but knew I must nonetheless. I knew that this abuser was just a young child himself and that something had most likely been done to him for him to even know the vocabulary and actions he carried out. Most juvenile offenders of sex crimes never serve any time in a correctional institution and are instead directed to intensive counseling. How do we protect the child who abuses as well as keeping them from abusing again? There may be no good answers, but some ideas shared in the bulletin will hopefully be helpful to someone who reads this.

The key for a school to manage the juvenile child sex offender is structure. This means that certain key people must be notified of the situation and be involved in monitoring all activities of the student sex offender.

In order for the “structure arrangement” to work, the school administration should also implement an approved School Safety Plan that the sex offender student must follow.

A School Safety Plan should include the following:

• The student must be required to check in at the principal’s office at start of school and check out at the conclusion of the day.
• The student can arrive at school only 15 minutes prior to the start of a class and must be off school property 15 minutes after attending the last class.
• The student’s school schedule should be created in such a way to allow no type of “free period” that could give the student the opportunity to travel around the school property in an unmonitored status.
• A member of the school staff must accompany the student during all bathroom breaks.
• The student must have a member of the school staff in the immediate vicinity whenever changing clothes for participation in a school activity.
• The student must never be allowed to swim or take a shower with other students.
• The student must follow certain prescribed routes to and from all classes, the gym, and the playground.
• If the student is required to commute on a school bus the student must sit in the first seat closest to the driver.
• The student shall not participate in school sanctioned class trips to the museum, park, etc.
• The student should never interact with a group of less than three students unless directly monitored.

Not a very pleasant topic to consider, I know. But, if you are ever presented with the situation as a parent you will know what issues must be addressed. We cannot leave it up to the schools to 'know what is best' and must assert ourselves when it comes to the protection of the God's children placed into our care. Child offenders? There are unfortunately more of them out there than you would care to imagine and because of their juvenile status, we may never know.