Project Description

The so-called “third wave” of revelations concerning sexual abuse and sexual misconduct by Roman Catholic clergy and religious has played out distinctively in the U.S. legal system.  In both the civil and criminal contexts, Catholic teaching and practice have intersected, and continue to intersect, with secular legal doctrines in complex and surprising ways.  But clergy abuse litigation, and scholarly commentary on it, has tended disproportionately to focus on dioceses and allegations of abuse by the ordained and lay ministers they employ, rather than on religious orders and allegations against their members.

In keeping with the overall objectives of the Taking Responsibility initiative, this project takes as a case study litigation against the Society of Jesus and its institutions under the Child Victims Act (CVA), a New York statute that created a “lookback” window for historic claims of sexual abuse.  The original goal of the project was to examine records of sexual abuse litigation against members, provinces, and other corporate units of the Society of Jesus to ascertain, first, how proceedings concerning clergy sexual abuse are different when allegations concern religious orders rather than dioceses and, second, how liability associated with abuse should be apportioned between religious orders and the institutions they sponsor. Because during the project period the New York legislature extended the CVA lookback window from one to two years, a significant number of claims were not filed until July and August 2021. Further, many CVA claims are now only at the “motion to dismiss” stage, when a judge reviews a plaintiff’s complaint and decides whether it plausibly alleges a violation of the law.  Losing parties, both plaintiffs and Jesuit entities, have appealed some of these early decisions.  For these reasons, it will likely be several more years before these claims are adjudicated on their merits. Thus, these results should be regarded as preliminary.