Federal Judge Rejects Church Claims of Constitutional Immunity for Child Abuse
Federal Judge William K. Sessions III of the United States District Court for the District of Vermont on September 28, 2012 rejected claims by the Catholic Church which would have allowed it to excape facing lawsuits by vicims of childhood sexual abuse by one of its priests of a 13 year old boy in 1974. The case is Edward Colomb v. Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington, Vermont, Inc., Case No. 2:10-cv-254 (D.Vt. September 28, 2012).
The now 50 year old survivor plaintiff charged that the diocese employed his abuser and other priests and transferred them around despite known instances of sexual abuse of children in their histories. As recently as 2003, allegedly the diocese continued covering up child abuse by its priests.
Trying to avoid trial, church lawyers argued that exposing it to claims for money damages should be barred by the First Amendment, for otherwise the government would “be allowed to shut the doors of a church and put it up for sale.” Mem. Opinion at 7. Judge Sessions rejected this argument as “utterly speculative.”
Among other failed legal claims, the diocese argued that making it face its accuser in court would violate the First Amendment by excessively entangling the government in church operations. However, the trial judge ruled that having to hire and supervise priests in a nonnegligent manner does not constitute undue interference in church governance. Id. at 15.
The church constantly seeks to hide behind religious freedom to permit it to cover-up and avoid accountability for the crimes it permits its priests to commit on innocent children. Fortunately, the courts constantly see through this ruse and rule that there is no religious persecution involved in making the church be accountable under neutral laws of general applicability, binding on all citizens, which are designed to protect children from child abuse. Ruling to the contrary would allow the church to operate outside the laws which bind us all together in our social compact.
For a strong affirmation that the church does not stand outside our laws, the reader should review the conslusion of chapter three in my recent book, When Priests Become Predators (2012), where the Delaware Supreme Court rejected other false church legal arguments.
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