A former student has filed a Catholic priest child abuse lawsuit against the Archdiocese of New York and a Catholic school, claiming that a late monsignor who taught at the school abused him or her when they were a teenager.

The alleged victim is anonymous, but says that the abuse by Monsignor Thomas Gaffney occurred between 1980 and 1981, when Gaffney was employed at St. Joseph-by-the-Sea High School in Huguenot, N.Y. in the borough of Staten Island, according to the Staten Island Advance. The plaintiff says that he or she was about 15 years old when Fr. Gaffney abused them physically, emotionally and psychologically.

The lawsuit names both the school and the Archdiocese of New York as defendants in the Catholic priest child abuse lawsuit and accuses both of negligence. Allegedly, Monsignor Gaffney, who served as the school’s principal, was given his position despite a history of sexually abusing children. 

According to the Catholic priest child abuse lawsuit, the school and the archdiocese should have done due diligence to investigate Fr. Gaffney’s history. Had they done so, according to the suit, they would have found Gaffney’s history of abusing children, making him unfit to be employed in a position of power over children.

This is not the first lawsuit alleging abuse by Fr. Gaffney, according to the newspaper. Fr. Gaffney died in 2004, and at the time, a New Jersey man was pursuing a lawsuit against the monsignor for allegedly abusing him as a child, when the man was a student at the school and an altar boy at the parish. 

Additionally, Monsignor Gaffney was reportedly included in a list of 120 Archdiocese of New York clergy members credibly accused of sexual abuse. The Archdiocese of New York published the list in April.

This recent lawsuit against Monsignor Gaffney was filed during the one- year lookback window recently enacted in New York. The window gives sexual abuse victims the opportunity to sue their alleged abusers, even if the statute of limitations would otherwise have prevented them from doing so. 

This one-year lookback window was created in conjunction with other changes to New York law that make it easier for victims to bring lawsuits against their alleged abusers, explains USA Today. Under the New York Child Victims Act, victims can file lawsuits alleging childhood sexual assault against alleged abusers until the victim turns 55. 

CNN reports that more than 400 lawsuits like the St. Joseph by-the-Sea one have been filed as part of the new law. CNN says that the window is important because many victims of Catholic priest sex abuse and abuse by other adults in positions of power keep the abuse secret for many years, either out of shame, fear, or both. 

The lawsuits were filed against alleged abusers, as well as institutions accused of either failing to take suffucient protections to prevent abuse or of enabling it to happen.

This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.