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Paul Muschick: What Lehigh Valley victims of priest sex abuse want to see happen next

Morning Call - 12/4/2019

Dec. 4--When Gov. Tom Wolf signed legislation last week to give future victims of child sexual abuse more opportunities to seek justice, Juliann Bortz watched from the audience with mixed emotions.

She supports the new law. Who wouldn't?

Anyone who rapes or molests a child should go to jail no matter how long it takes to catch them. That's what the law allows by removing the statute of limitations on criminal charges, and extending the time to file lawsuits.

Bortz is glad future victims will have those protections -- because she didn't.

She's one of the thousand or so child victims of clergy sexual abuse who were identified in last year's stunning state grand jury report. It exposed seven decades of allegations against priests and cover-ups by the church.

Bortz told the grand jury she was abused by a priest who taught her at Allentown Central Catholic High School in 1965.

Now 70, Bortz is disappointed that lawmakers haven't done anything to help people like her. But she hasn't given up hope she will one day be able to get justice.

That's why she attended the bill signing, driving nearly an hour from her home in Lower Macungie to the event near Reading.

"I've got to trust that someday it will happen," Bortz told me Monday.

She's hopeful about a multi-year process started by the Legislature to amend the state Constitution. It could open a two-year window for retroactive lawsuits.

Bortz called after reading my column last week about Wolf signing the legislation. She wanted to thank me for continuing to write about the unfinished business to help clergy abuse victims, and for stressing that this is not a done deal.

Lawmakers need to pass more legislation to authorize a voter referendum to amend the Constitution. The earliest that could happen would be November 2021.

She wants people to know that clergy sex abuse victims aren't looking to sue for the money. They want to sue to force church officials to testify, and to open more archival records.

"That's justice. That's what justice means to me," Bortz said. "Getting these guys under oath."

She has talked with a lot of other victims of clergy sex abuse and has yet to hear a financial motive for allowing lawsuits.

"'I want the truth' is what people say, including myself," she said.

Another church abuse victim, Robert Corby of Bethlehem, also called me after reading last week's column to thank me for publicizing the need to do more for victims.

He echoed Bortz's thoughts. He said he accepted a payment from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's victims compensation fund about two months ago, and "I don't want a penny of it."

Corby, 84, intends to leave the money for his children and grandchildren.

"It's not going to heal me," he said.

Corby told me he sees a therapist because of what happened when he was 13. He waited and waited for lawmakers to open a window for retroactive lawsuits, but it never came.

Like Bortz, he supports what lawmakers have done so far, and continues to hope that retroactive lawsuits are able to be filed by victims. "If that's going to help them, do it," Corby said. He wouldn't be able to sue because he accepted the compensation fund payment.

Allowing retroactive lawsuits was among four recommendations from the grand jury. Another was eliminating the statute of limitations on criminal charges.

"These victims ran out of time to sue before they even knew they had a case; the church was still successfully hiding its complicity," the grand jury wrote in its report.

The grand jury didn't suggest how to open a window for lawsuits. Many people, including victims such as Corby and Bortz, hoped state lawmakers would write it into law, as 14 other states have done.

Lawmakers refused to do that, with Republicans in the Senate arguing that would violate the state Constitution. So compromise legislation was agreed upon to start a two-year process of amending the Constitution.

As I wrote last week, that's not the ideal solution. It requires more legislative action, and nothing ever is guaranteed in the Capitol as political winds shift. Then it requires voters to sign off.

But the other option was dead. Bortz told me she recognizes the reality and also reluctantly backs the plan.

"We needed to get something," she said. "Something is better than nothing."

Other victims aren't so willing to accept the Legislature's direction. That's why Bortz was one of the few clergy abuse victims to attend last week's bill signing.

We talked about whether there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

"It's not a bright light, for sure," Bortz said. "There may be a glimmer of hope."

Morning Call columnist Paul Muschick can be reached at 610-820-6582 or paul.muschick@mcall.com

-- priest sex abuse

-- clergy

-- Catholic Church

-- Pennsylvania

-- Legislature

-- Constitution

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