James Grein, left, and his lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, on Wednesday.
“Theodore E. McCarrick, the prominent Roman Catholic cardinal who was defrocked early this year for sexual abuse, brought one of his victims, James Grein, then 30, to meet Pope John Paul II in 1988.
It was a private audience, Mr. Grein recalled as he became one of hundreds of people to begin filing lawsuits on Wednesday under the Child Victims Act. The new state law says that for one year, sexual abuse victims of any age in New York — including, crucially, those whose cases had expired under the old statute of limitations — can take legal action.
After Mr. McCarrick, then the archbishop of Newark, left the room, Mr. Grein said he knelt before the pope and revealed, in the presence of several Vatican officials, that Mr. McCarrick had been sexually abusing him since childhood.
‘I told him I had been abused as a child by this man, and I need you to stop it,’ said an emotional Mr. Grein, who is now 61. ‘He put both hands on my head, and told me he would pray for me.’
Victims of sexual abuse in New York were previously required to file civil lawsuits by their 23rd birthdays. Under the new law, they now have until age 55, and for one year, starting on Wednesday, they can be even older than that.
The window may become a powerful lever for clergy abuse victims to find out how extensive the cover-up of sexual abuse was in the Catholic Church and whether top Vatican officials knew about it.”
If Grein’s story is true, it suggests the level knowledge about child sex abuse and complicity in it by the Pope and Church has been widespread for decades. If abused people can actually prove their cases, often not an easy thing to do, it is likely the Catholic Church will be bankrupted, at least in New York. Other service organizations are also bracing for an onslaught of lawsuits, including the Boy Scouts.
Thoughts and prayers don't cut it to bring some degree justice to the victims, but lawsuits just might.
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