TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — One detailed how her father sexually abused her decades ago. Another recalled a priest fondling him as a teenager. And yet another remembered walking directly back to class after a priest raped her in the fourth grade.
One by one, they pleaded with lawmakers. Their main message: Please help us. Please help victims.
Kansas generally gives victims of childhood sexual abuse three years to file lawsuits once they turn 18. The limited window shuts out a vast array of victims, including many struggling well into adulthood.
But legislators are weighing whether to eliminate the time limit. And victims are pushing for a “lookback” window allowing lawsuits to be brought over abuse that occurred decades ago. Researchers are in widespread agreement that child victims frequently don’t disclose their abuse until adulthood.
As more states move to reform their statutes of limitations for child sex abuse lawsuits, victims are watching to see whether Kansas will be next. Can the change they desperately want advance all the way through the legislative process and become law amid the swirl of election-year politics and other issues demanding attention?
A bill to remove the civil statute of limitations took a small but symbolically powerful step forward this month almost exactly a year after it was introduced. Half a dozen adults who suffered abuse as children, many now middle-aged or older, shared their stories in a wrenching hearing in Topeka, according to The Wichita Eagle.
“I was just a victim. I was just 15 years old. Please help me,” said Rodger Faherty Jr., 58, who alleges he was abused in the ‘70s by the Rev. Finian Meis in the Kansas City area. The Catholic Church has listed Meis, who is deceased, among priests credibly accused.
By turns sad, angry and resolved, they painted a picture of horrific violations endured at the hands of trusted leaders and family members who held power over them.
“I knew my dangers in my house and I knew what they were and I felt like I could navigate them,” said Lesa Patterson-Kinsey, a Prairie Village resident who was abused. “To leave and to have to face unknown dangers, I was not willing to do that. So I kept my story quiet.”
While The Eagle does not typically identify the victims of sex crimes, everyone named in this story provided public testimony.
Much of the attention nationwide on removing or changing statutes of limitations has been driven by the abuse scandal that has swept across the Catholic Church over the past 20 years. Kansas has seen its own share of horrifying behavior come to light.
Church officials have released the names of dozens of credibly accused clergy members in Kansas, according to a database maintained by ProPublica. That includes 27 in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas and 16 in the Diocese of Wichita.
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation in 2019 launched 74 investigations into clergy sexual abuse that span 33 of the state’s 105 counties. The agency opened the inquiries after receiving more than 100 reports from victims.
In written testimony, Faherty described how Meis, who was stationed at The Good Shepherd in Shawnee, had fondled him.
When it came time for Faherty to stand before lawmakers and speak, he stood at the lectern choking up as he struggled to compose himself. Once he began, he laid out how the abuse spiraled him into three years marked by drugs, suicide attempts and violence.
