Trust betrayed

The timing could not have been more depressing: Just as New York lawmakers got ready to wrap another session having failed to fix a statute of limitations that blocks victims of decades-old sexual abuse from seeking justice, just such an abuse allegation brought down former D.C. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, one of America’s highest-ranking prelates.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan announced the church-shattering news Wednesday: a review board found credible a claim that, when a monsignor in Manhattan in the early 1970s, McCarrick molested an altar boy in St. Patrick’s Cathedral before Christmas masses in 1971 and 1972.

McCarrick’s victim sought redress through Dolan’s independent compensation fund, smartly established in 2016 as a vehicle to provide restitution to victims. It has delivered peace and closure to hundreds, distributing over $40 million in slightly more than two years.

But it never was a substitute for reforming the laws.

Under current statute, young victims have only until they turn 23 to bring a criminal complaint or until 21 to file a civil claim against the individual or institution responsible. The strongest version of the Child Victims Act extends the deadline for civil claims to 50 years after the offense.

Pray a tremor close to home jars the church to get on the right side of history.