For much of the past 25-years Jeff Anderson has been the American Catholic Church’s bete noire. Working out of a small office in St Paul, Minnesota, the 63-year-old US attorney has spearheaded more than 1,500 lawsuits against the Catholic Church, winning millions of dollars for his clients whilst forcing open one of the world’s most secretive institutions.
Now the tough-talking American lawyer with a taste for Zen Buddhism has co-founded a London-based law firm to bring sex abuse lawsuits against churches in Britain. The new firm, Jeff Anderson ”“ Ann Olivarius Law, is one the first attempts to create a cross Atlantic practice dedicated to launching legal actions on multiple continents using aggressive litigation tactics that have been honed for over two decades in the United States.
An acolyte chaser.
And he’s “earned” just a few bucks for himself.
I take a different view. ““If you followed the clergy abuse scandal as it grew in the United States it was clear that, if not for Jeff Anderson, the Catholic Church hierarchy and its clergy might have never been held responsible as they are today,…” This attorney is attempting to hold the church accountable for its actions and for harboring criminals and perpetuating the abuse by allowing their continued access to children.
If you have not read the stories of the lives of the victims, you cannot comprehend the kind of lasting and pervasive devastation that occurs in a human being as a result of sexual abuse of a child by a trusted adult. Some of them repress the memories until a subsequent trauma forces it from the depths of their unconscious decades later.
Clergy or any other sexual abuse is an invisible internal injury and infection that must be treated, the sooner the better. The child’s needs should take priority over that of the adult perpetrator or his reputation or that of his/her institution and its leaders. Jesus said it would be better that a millstone be hung on their necks than to have to face the punishment He will wreak upon these evildoers.
Mere money and disgrace is poor recompense for what the child suffers.
Brain scans show the effects of trauma, drug use, thoughts, and even prayer. Research indicates that the brain changes chemically, structurally and functionally, positively and negatively, cumulatively, interactively and continually throughout life due to events, interpersonal interactions (that’s why empathy, social support, therapy are beneficial), thoughts (negative thoughts perpetuate depression), actions and exposure and ingestion of food and other substances (substance abuse damages brain, make it look like that of an elderly person on scans). Even intense use of a computer changes the brain.
Sexual abuse victims are physically, emotionally and relationally damaged and need treatment, probably lifelong, and they should receive appropriate care at the expense of those who allowed, denied, perpetuated and covered it up. That is likely the only way to make sure those responsible are jerked out of denial, made to see the truth and are penalized enough to see it does not happen again. The Roman Catholic Church and Western Anglicans have, covertly and overtly respectively, allowed persons with untreated/unhealed/unrepentant same-sex sexual feelings and who self-identify as ‘gay’ (and ‘lesbian’ in the case of Anglicans) to populate their priesthoods. This is a violation of Scripture that has and will continue to bring forth bad and expensive fruit.
And almost all sexual abusers were themselves abused as children or early in puberty. Most of those who were sexually abused do not become abusers – but the less sexual abuse there is, thanks to light being shone upon the situation, the few sexual abusers there will be.
If the church had a zero tolerance policy in place then the lawyers would have nothing to litigate. The math is simple.
Intercessor
Intercessor, what should a ‘zero tolerance’ policy look like if you’re representing an organization that purports to believe in forgiveness and mercy?
I’ve been pondering this for some time. How do people in the business of extending God’s mercy make a ‘zero tolerance’ policy?
The reports indicate that abuse of minors is as rare or more so in the Catholic Church in the US then most other public, private and religious institutions. So, why do you think Anderson has targeted the Catholic Church?
Phil, was it Willie Sutton who answered “because that’s where the money is”?