tag | clergy abuse

“He had no empathy for a single child in any of those images. “The reaction (William) McCandless felt was to look for more.”

House lawmakers green-lit a bill that would give survivors another two years to sue their alleged abusers, but it’s been languishing in the Senate.

John G. Allen was removed from the priesthood in 2006 and was among the priests listed in a 2018 investigating grand jury report about sexual abuse. He had worked in Cumberland, Dauphin, Lancaster, Lebanon and Snyder counties.

Some survivors and their advocates believe the quickest way to remedy the problem is to abandon the time-consuming path of amending the state constitution, and instead approve the two-year window through regular legislation.

The path for an amendment to become law in Pennsylvania is long. The language has to pass the legislature in two consecutive sessions, then go to voters for a referendum.

The Department of State did not advertise, as required, a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would open a two-year window for litigation by survivors of child sexual abuse who have aged out of the statute of limitations for suing.

Pennsylvania’s highest court on Tuesday grappled with whether a woman’s lawsuit on claims of sexual abuse by a priest decades ago should be allowed to proceed.