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Attorney John Evers questions potential jurors in Chittenden Superior Court in Burlington, Vt., Monday, Sept.28, at the start of a case to determine if the Roman Catholic Diocese is responsible for sexual abuse by now de-frocked priest Rev. Ed Paquette, 80, of Westfield, Massachusetts. (Vermont Daily News photo)
Burlington, Vt. – Jury selection got underway today in Chittenden Superior Court in Burlington, Vt., where a sexually-abused, former altar boy seeks damages from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington. The court, presided over by the Honorable Judge Helen Toor, will determine over the next 7 days if the Diocese is legally responsible for abuses to the former altar boy by defrocked priest Edward Paquette, 80, now of Westfield, Mass.
The court has placed over 12 million in liens on the assets of the church which faces more than 20 additional lawsuits stemming from sexual abuses by its priests during a time period about thirty years ago.
During the selection process in the morning, Judge Toor reminded potential jurors of their task this week regarding the case, “the question is whether the diocese is legally responsible for that,” after she explained that there was no question in this case that the abuses had occurred.
-Vermont Daily News staff report.
Attorney Kaveh S. Shahi, for the Roman Catholic Diocese, listens as Attorney John Evers questions potential jurors in Chittenden Superior Court in Burlington, Vt., Monday, Sept.28, at the start of a case to determine if the Roman Catholic Diocese is responsible for numerous incidents of sexual abuse of altar boys by Rev. Paquette while he was a priest. (Vermont Daily News photo)
APOLOGIES ARE GROSSLY INADEQUATE
Pedophile priest Edward Paquette is an archetypal figure, a product of the clerical system that spawned him or at least enabled and protected him. He speaks to the tragic need to change all states’ inadequate childhood sexual abuse statutes for the protection of everyone.
Sexual abusers like Paquette and his ilk are men of unrelenting depravity and it is deplorable that most of them can never be criminally prosecuted for their alleged crimes.
They are either dead or beyond the law as it stands.
They will never be listed on any state sexual predators’ list and why?
Because their enablers, their bishops, did not put our children first; they did not have the integrity to do what they were morally bound to do in the first place, and that was to call the police. Instead, they transferred them from parish to parish over many decades where they continued to savage children.
This reality is hard to stomach, and it is the reason why every state in the nation should be passing new legislation that will open a civil window of at least two years to get some of these sociopaths and their records into a civil, if not criminal, courtroom where they belong.
How can accommodations in law, such as the arbitrary statutes of limitation that virtually bar victims of childhood sexual abuse from pursuing justice, be permitted by any state?
Justice and charity are what Jesus taught. He never said it was contingent on the price tag.
The people of every state deserve better laws that protect our children more than they protect child abusers, molesters and rapists.
Accountability and transparency in the present and future offers neither justice nor forgiveness for the crimes and sins of the past. The individual enablers, leaders of the institutional church who knew and covered up or facilitated such heinous crimes against children must be held accountable by society.
Sister Maureen Paul Turlish
Victims’ Advocate
maureenpaulturlish@yahoo.com
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Sister Maureen Paul Turlish is a victims’ advocate and a Delaware educator who testified before the Senate and House Judiciary Committees in support of Delaware’s Child Victims Law which was passed in July, 2007.