The Catholic bishops’ 2007 Annual Report on sexual abuse, based on an outside audit, found fifteen allegations of childhood sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the U.S. from 2000 to 2007, an average rate of less than two per year. However, a 2007 Associated Press investigation indentified 2,570 public school teachers in the period 2001 to 2005 who had their teaching licenses “taken away, denied, surrendered voluntarily, or restricted” as a result of sexual conduct with minors.
Noting that the bishops’ report includes unproven allegations while the public schools report concerns sufficiently proven allegations, the Nussbaums write:
“Assuming only one victim per disciplined public school teacher, the ratio of abuse in public schools to that in the Catholic Church could run as high as 275 to 1.”
However, according to the Nussbaums, Hamilton’s new book only argues for the removal of statutory limitations for private entities and not for public ones.
The Nussbaums defended the existence of statutes of limitation, arguing the laws ensure reliable evidence and hamper false accusations. They also prevent undue liabilities upon future generations who are punished for the actions of a perpetrator in their organization’s past.
The two critics then identified Hamilton as a member of a coalition which included victims’ attorneys and the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests who in 2002 successfully lobbied the California State Assembly to enact a window on statutes of limitations for sex abuse claims,
This resulted in claims against the Catholic Church concerning incidents as far back as the 1930s, many alleging abuse by over a hundred priests “long dead.”
Against Hamilton’s claim that Catholic dioceses were not “targeted” by the legislation, the Nussbaums quote the chief sponsor of the bill, State Sen. John Burton, who told the Los Angeles Times that the bill was a “direct response” to the national clerical sexual abuse scandal involving Catholic priests and was aimed at “deep pocket” defendants such as the Catholic Church.
The Nussbaums also described Hamilton and her coalition’s efforts in Colorado in 2006, saying that the Colorado Catholic Conference had asked that the coalition’s proposed legislation satisfy the two principles of “fairness and prevention” by asking that the same standards and penalties be applied to both private and public institutions.
Hamilton attacked the argument as an “insidious” and “vile” strategy, to which the Nussbaums responded:
“Calling for childhood sexual abuse legislation that treats public and private entities alike is only insidious if one’s real goal is to burden only private institutions.”
(Story continues below)
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The Nussbaums concluded their essay at the First Things website by arguing:
“Marci Hamilton’s Justice Denied is a sloppy piece of work, poorly researched and poorly written. It is a diatribe against the Catholic Church disguised as a solution to child sexual abuse. Hamilton’s clients and ours—all of us—deserve better.”