Survivors and anti-abuse advocates call on lawmakers to urge AG's office to open clergy abuse reporting hotline
Victims disappointed that newly passed HB 1618 fails to hold perpetrators and the institutions that enabled them accountable
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MARCH 1, 2024
CONTACT:
Tim Law
ECA Co-founder/Board Member
+1-206-412-0165
timalaw@aol.com
Mary Dispenza
SNAP Northwest Director
+1-425-941-6001
mcdispenza@comcast.net
Yesterday, the Washington State Senate passed HB 1618, legislation that would abolish the civil statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims without providing a “look-back window” that would allow victims previously barred from filing claims to bring lawsuits.
Last week, members of the Catholic Accountability Project (CAP) testified against HB 1618 because the bill does not eliminate the barriers to justice for victims. Tim Law, a Seattle-based attorney and CAP Founding Member said, “The Church has known for many, many decades of the scourge of clergy sexual abuse of our children and the cover-up by its bishops…and yet they have the privilege to be protected by a bill that will not hold them accountable for past sexual abuse of children.”
Peter Isely, a clergy abuse survivor and member of CAP said, “All abuse is in the past. Abuse happening today will be in the past tomorrow…This bill must be retroactive or it eliminates our abuse and suffering because it didn’t happen after this June. It erases us.”
CAP commends the legislature’s support for the elimination of the civil statute of limitations on the principle that every child victim deserves justice regardless of when they are ready to file a case in civil court. However, by denying every child victim abused prior to June 6, 2024 this right by failing to include a look-back window in HB 1618, the legislature is punishing victims and exonerating perpetrators and their institutions.
Discovery documents and depositions of Church officials, compelled through civil litigation, have constituted some of the greatest sources of evidence of the institutional complicity of the Church in perpetuating widespread sexual abuse of children. Because the legislature has failed to include a look-back window allowing this litigation, this evidence could remain concealed from justice officials and the public.
HB 1618’s passage only underscores the urgency for Attorney General Bob Ferguson to obtain tens of thousands of pages of documents and evidence from Washington State’s Catholic dioceses related to clergy sexual abuse and its institutional concealment. Last month, CAP announced that Ferguson’s office had sent subpoenas to Archbishop Étienne of Seattle, Bishop Tyson of Yakima, and Bishop Daly of Spokane, for these records in August 2023. Neither Ferguson nor Étienne, who was confronted last month by abuse victims and advocates, would confirm if the Catholic Church has cooperated with the subpoenas.
CAP is calling on legislators to support survivors’ calls for the Office of the Attorney General to open a hotline and confidential online reporting system where victims, witnesses, and whistleblowers can report abuse and cover-up.
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