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If you were sexually abused as a child by a priest, deacon or any other member of the Catholic Church, you are not alone. We are here to help you. Please fill out our confidential online contact form or call Toll Free 1-866-777-2557 and a Connecticut Sexual Abuse Lawyer will get back to you within 24 hours to discuss your possible case. Help is available nationwide. There is no cost to investigate and there are no legal fees unless you receive financial compensation. Making the call is sometimes the hardest step, but it is often a necessary step on the road to healing. Church Sexual Assault Lawyer Connecticut
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Please call Toll Free 1-866-777-2557 or fill out our confidential contact form and a lawyer will get back to you within 24 hours to discuss your case. Connecticut Church Sexual Assault Lawyer
Connecticut Church Sexual Assault Lawyer
Child sex abuse scandal Hartford Archdiocese
For many outsiders, it’s difficult to imagine that a high-level member of the Catholic church would purposely and knowingly let a child abuser continue working with children—let alone support and encourage their career. Yet the evidence is compelling. For decades, church officials helped those credibly accused of abuse to sweep their crimes under the rug. Hartford Diocese in Connecticut is home to many examples.
Church Sexual Assault Lawyer Connecticut
The website BishopAccountability reports that in 1986, Henry Mansell
was a high-ranking personnel administrator for the Archdiocese of New York, he encouraged a colleague who had been treated for pedophilia and barred from working with children to seek a promotion. ‘The future is bright with promise,’ he wrote to the Rev. Edward Pipala, who got to lead his own parish two years later.
Connecticut Church Sexual Assault Lawyer
Mr. Pipala has since served seven years in prison for molestation and no longer works as a priest. In Buffalo, Bishop Mansell has refused to identify accused priests to police. State law doesn't require him to do so, and the bishop said that divulging names could chill efforts to uncover wrongdoing by clergy.
Church Sexual Assault Lawyer Connecticut
Another shocking tale of abuse was uncovered more recently. In the 1980s, Hartford archdiocese operate St. Francis hospital. There, a Dr. Reardon, chief of endocrinology, carried out a hospital-sponsored "growth study", in which he allegedly abused children and collected inappropriate photographs of them. Pornographic slides and videos were found inside a “wall of secrets” inside the doctor’s home in 2007. An attorney heading up the lawsuit said, “It's preposterous to suggest that the hospital didn't know, number one, they should have known because they had a research committee that was supposed to be in place to supervise it, and number two, many people there actually did know and nobody did anything about it.”
Connecticut Church Sexual Assault Lawyer
The shocking 2018 grand jury report from Pennsylvania also shed light on abuses in the diocese. For instance, it revealed that Mansell had arranged the transfer of a priest who impregnated a 17-year-old girl. So how were priests able to get away with things like this? Experts speak of “institutional abuse,” in which children, the elderly or people with mental handicaps are preyed on by institutions that are supposed to help them.
Church Sexual Assault Lawyer Connecticut
The factors that encourage people in an institution to overlook abuse by others include:
• A “closed” culture within an organization where transparency is discouraged
• Failure to properly check the backgrounds and interview staff
• Inadequate training of staff
• Lack of child protection policies
• Lack of support of staff by management
• Poor communication skills
• Poor supervision of staff and children
Connecticut Church Sexual Assault Lawyer
In the case of the church, it is clear that a culture of secrecy was ubiquitous for many decades, if not centuries. Lack of policies are also a factor, with many priests and bishops having stated, for instance, that they did not report abuse to law enforcement because no policy required it. In Connecticut and elsewhere, an increasing culture of transparency may hold promise to protect future generations of children.
Church Sexual Assault Lawyer Connecticut
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