Non Tasarmi, Fratello!

“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, There’s always laughter and good red wine. At least I’ve always found it so. Benedicamus Domino!” Hillaire Belloc

Thursday, August 15, 2019

Fredo's Brother, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Claims to be Catholic


 Of course, Cuomo was "educated" at Fordham University...a Jesuit school.



 From "The Catholic Thing". Read it all.


The eight Catholic dioceses of New York are bracing themselves against a flood of lawsuits over clerical sexual abuse. A new law, known as the Child Victims Act, was passed early this year and signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo in February. Among the provisions of the new law is a one-year “look-back window,” during which civil cases that had passed the statute of limitations can be revived.

That window opened yesterday, August 14.

New civil suits are being filed. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, more are expected to be filed in the coming weeks and months. (I just Googled “Child Victims Act” and the first four results are advertisements for trial lawyers with offices in New York.)

Given the increased liability for the Catholic Church – and the fact that the bishops of New York trust Governor Cuomo about as far as they can throw him – you might suspect that the bishops would be opposed to the new law. And they were. Or rather, they were opposed to earlier versions of the law, and had been for years. But they withdrew their opposition in late January, just before the bill was passed.

As the bishops said in a statement at the time, “The legislation now recognizes that child sexual abuse is an evil not just limited to one institution, but a tragic societal ill that must be addressed in every place where it exists.”


So what changed? The Catholic bishops wanted several changes in the bill. They hoped to see the statute of limitations dropped entirely for criminal sex-abuse cases; the law merely extends them (along with statutes of limitations in civil cases). The bishops were also reluctant to support the look-back window, for obvious reasons. But they either had a change of heart on that point – or saw the writing on the wall. The real sticking point was a loophole that would have left public institutions – in particular, public schools – largely immune to the kind of exposure non-public institutions (like the Catholic Church) would face under the new law.
New York law requires that a “notice of claim” be filed by a victim before proceeding in a civil claim against a public institution. If that “notice of claim” isn’t filed within 90 days, the suit can’t proceed. The result was that victims of child sexual abuse had just 90 days to decide to take civil action against state and municipal institutions, including public schools.
For years, bishops around the country have insisted that legislation that lifts, or retroactively extends, statutes of limitations for civil suits in child sex-abuse cases ought not single-out the Catholic Church. The Child Victims Act removes the “notice of claim” loophole for cases involving the sexual abuse of minors, both new cases and those that might be brought during the look-back window. When that language was changed in the proposed bill, the Catholic bishops dropped their objections.

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