The Fight To Protect Negligent Organizations Continues

There are some who believe that the fight to hold organizations like the Catholic Church accountable for covering up sexual abuse has been won. In the face of almost universal public condemnation for those who enable child sexual abuse, it can seem unimaginable that there could be another side. Sadly, the same organizations who covered up the deplorable abuse of their members have continued the fight to deny victims any measure of justice. The fight has simply moved to whether victims deserve compensation, and from whom.

Lobbying For Injustice

The Catholic Church and the insurance companies that cover them have spent millions of dollar in Pennsylvania to make sure the law will protect them from accountability. After attempting to hide the abuse, and refusing to remove abusers from positions of power, these organizations have moved on to working to avoid paying victims any money for the horrors they experienced. Laws friendly to abusers and unfriendly to victims have spread in jurisdictions where lobbyist efforts are high.

A Common Response

The predators who prey on children often expend considerable effort in setting the stage for their abuse. They select victims carefully. They know how to enlist the aid of others, including employers, organizations, friends, even the parents and guardians of victims, to accomplish their goals. Perhaps, then, it is no surprise that these organizations would continue to work so hard to protect abusers from a proper reckoning. It is hard to accept that your church, business or group helped an abuser to traumatize a child. Rather than accept responsibility, many will continue to fight the victims tooth and nail.

The victims of these crimes deserve better. Organizations that paved the way for abusers in the past should pay for what they’ve done. They should not be able to hide behind insurance companies and lobbyists while victims are left to struggle without proper resources. The Catholic dioceses in Greensburg, Allentown, Erie, Harrisburg, Scranton, Pittsburgh and other groups around the country should stop promoting laws that fail to compensate their victims.