Victims of priest abuse find healing in unity

Acknowledgment by the church - such as through listening sessions with bishops - is a crucial factor in the healing process, says the Rev. Kenneth Lasch, pastor at St. Joseph's Church in Mendham, N.J., where Cotton and other Hanley victims grew up. Father Lasch has shepherded survivor families and the parish through the crisis resulting from the former pastor's abusive behavior. Lasch also invited the bishop to a listening session with victims on that eventful afternoon last April when Cotton had his breakthrough.

Yet it would never have happened, Cotton says, had Mr. Serrano not broken his confidentiality agreement with the church and told his story to The New York Times. While such gag orders have protected the privacy of victims and accused - and the reputation of the church - they kept other victims in the dark. Last June, the bishops promised not to require confidentiality agreements in the future, but they did not release victims from past agreements.

Tuesday, a new support group called SurvivorsFirst.org took a major step to spread information on abuse. It launched the first public national database of priests involved in alleged abuse - starting with some 600 names. It lists priests who have been convicted, face pending legal action, reached settlements, or are the subject of allegations reported in newspapers. It also will list priests cleared of false allegations.

According to Paul Baier, the group's founder, the Internet database has several goals: to help survivors connect with others abused by the same priest, to help parishes find out if an abusive priest has served in their parish, and to provide a factual basis for public discussion of the scope of the problem. The US Conference of Bishops has never kept a list, but the national lay review board created under the Dallas charter is charged with studying the scope of the problem.

Mr. Baier says his group has a private database of another 1,500 names, which could eventually be listed as legal action develops.

As they discussed the policy revisions this week, the bishops clarified the church's statute of limitations in abuse cases. (Victims' groups had argued that, by ruling out old cases, the limits mean abusive priests will remain in the ministry.) The church will not lift the limits, but Cardinal Francis George of Chicago said that if a preliminary investigation shows sufficient evidence, a bishop must request an exemption from the statute. He seemed to suggest the Vatican would almost certainly comply.

For Cotton and other Hanley victims, it is not only the church statute which is at issue. The priest admitted his guilt and agreed to be defrocked. But despite a thick file of evidence, he is living freely in Patterson, N.J., because the state's statute of limitations has expired.

"He committed felony assault on 15 children and he has gotten away with it," Cotton says.

But as the New Jersey representative for SNAP, Cotton is pushing for a state law to abolish the statute of limitations. "The most important factor in my healing is that I can contribute to society - to correcting a very serious problem."

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