Jurisdiction saves Philly archdiocese from culpability for priest's alleged sex abuse in New Jersey
In a blow for clergy sex abuse victims, the New Jersey State Supreme Court has ruled that a Catholic archdiocese's accountability for an alleged predatory priest does not cross state lines.
The decision arose from the case of an Illinois man who accused Michael J. McCarthy, a priest in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1965 until he was defrocked in 2006, of molesting him during an overnight stay in Margate in 1971, when he was 14 and a member of McCarthy's parish.
The man, identified only as D.T. in court paperwork, sued the archdiocese in May 2020 in New Jersey, one year after state legislators here enacted the New Jersey Child Victims Act.
That law created a two-year window, from 2019 to 2021, to allow people to revive previously time-barred civil claims arising from childhood sexual abuse. Thereafter, under the law, victims can sue for childhood abuse before they turn 55 or within seven years of realizing the abuse caused them harm. Most states, including Pennsylvania, do not have such laws, leaving victims seeking justice for long-ago abuse with no legal recourse.
But a New Jersey trial court twice dismissed D.T.'s claim, citing a lack of jurisdiction, and an appellate panel upheld the dismissals. On Tuesday, Justice Anne Patterson affirmed the lower courts' decisions.
'The conduct that D.T. alleges — a priest's exploitation of his clerical role to sexually abuse a minor — is reprehensible,' Patterson wrote for a unanimous court. 'The sole issue before the Court, however, is whether our courts may exercise personal jurisdiction over the Archdiocese in the setting of this case.'
The short answer is no, Patterson wrote, because the alleged abuse occurred at a private home and McCarthy — not the archdiocese — got permission from D.T.'s widowed mother to take her son on the trip. McCarthy took the teen to Margate specifically so that he could have unsupervised access to him, without his superiors' knowledge, she added.
'There is no evidence that any Archdiocese representative was aware of McCarthy's impending trip, let alone that it assigned McCarthy to take D.T. to New Jersey,' Patterson wrote. 'There is no evidence that McCarthy conducted business on behalf of the Archdiocese in New Jersey, or that the trip entailed any religious or ecclesiastical activities.'
McCarthy is one of 23 priests the archdiocese laicized because of credible allegations of sexual abuse of minors; another 42 had credible allegations too but are no longer living.
Mark Crawford is the New Jersey director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. He spent 20 years pushing New Jersey legislators to pass the New Jersey Child Victims Act but hasn't been successful in similar advocacy in Pennsylvania.
He called Tuesday's ruling 'tragic for victims of abuse.' He likened it to General Motors denying culpability for a defective car that leaves a New Jersey resident injured, solely because they're headquartered in Michigan.
'A priest doesn't stop acting as a priest because he has crossed a state line,' Crawford said. 'He is still working as a priest whether he is in a church, a library, a school, or a private home. He is always 'on the job.''
The Catholic Church's coverup of clergy sex abuse is well-known, he added. He cited the recent revelation that Diocese of Camden lawyers persuaded a judge in 2023 to keep secret a hearing in which they successfully petitioned to block a state investigation of clergy sex abuse.
'It's just deeply disappointing and makes me angry that our judicial system is protecting entities that knowingly allowed predators to cross state lines and commit crimes and then said, 'Wait a minute, we're not responsible,'' Crawford said.
An attorney for D.T. did not respond to a request for comment.
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