Detroit Catholic Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton rocked his church Wednesday, first by admitting that he, too, was a child victim of sexual abuse years ago and then by calling on lawmakers to change laws that bar victims from suing the church in older cases.
"I speak out of my own experience of being exploited as a teenager through inappropriate touching by a priest," the 75-year-old bishop said in a statement he passed out at a news conference on behalf of abuse victims in Ohio.
That made Gumbleton the first U.S. Catholic bishop to acknowledge having experienced such abuse.
"I understand why victims of sexual abuse need this new window of opportunity" to bring legal actions, he said at the demonstration. "I know how difficult it is for me to speak about what happened."
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060112/NEWS01/601120477/1001/NEWS
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