Victims’ last chance

Those haunted by the memory of being sexually abused as children this week saw two more men accused of violating youngsters decades ago. Authorities in Wellesley, Mass. charged Theodore McCarrick, who was once the cardinal for Washington, D.C., with indecent assault and battery for preying on a boy in 1974. Massachusetts’ statute of limitation would have lapsed, but the clock stopped when, soon after the alleged abuse, McCarrick crossed state lines.

And here in New York, an unnamed John Doe has filed suit saying priest-turned-councilman Louis Gigante sexually assaulted him from 197677, when he was a 9-year-old in Father Gigante’s Bible study.

No one knows how many more people harbor horror stories of having been molested years ago by teachers, clergy, camp counselors and others their families trusted to protect them. But all who wish to pursue the truth in a court of law, and make their abusers and the institutions that protected them pay a price, have two remaining weeks to access the courts in our state. Aug. 14 is when what under the Child Victims Act was originally a one-year lookback window (which was then extended another year due to COVID), enabling civil lawsuits that would otherwise be time-barred, closes.

The lookback window is also a mirror. Victims process their pain in different ways, and not all wish to unearth the vivid details of some of the darkest moments of their lives. But for many, psychological trauma is so deep, the only way to begin to heal is to dredge up what happened, detail by detail. Pointing fingers and naming names is also how people in power who sheltered abusers may finally be held accountable for their callous disregard of so many children.

More than 7,600 lawsuits that would have been outside the state’s civil statute of limitations have been brought since Aug. 14, 2019, when the courts reopened to these cases. Fourteen days remain. Justice is not an abstraction. If you want it, this is your chance.