Is there a double standard when it comes to child molestation accountability?  With the Los Angeles archdiocese's recent, record pay-out of $660 million to 508 alleged victims of clergy sex abuse, the matter that the Catholic Church wants to exorcise may — if Maryland critics have their way — come back to haunt incoming Baltimore Archbishop Edwin Frederick O'Brien.

In contrast to Los Angeles' woes, his prospective archdiocese reports settling a scant nine child sex abuse cases to date — for $4.15 million — with no further cases pending.

But Baltimore attorney Joanne Suder said the number of stymied cases is actually much higher. "It's probably over 200," she said of the number of abuse complaints that her law firm alone has compiled against area Catholic clergy since 1985. Of these, Suder has a dozen poised for litigation should Maryland's statute of limitations law be changed.

Currently, plaintiffs must file sex abuse suits against clergy by their 25th birthday — a restriction that critics call prohibitive and dampening — but anti-molestation activists are lobbying Annapolis to temporarily allow open-ended filings.

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The controversial bill in question, however, according to sponsor Senator Jim Brochin (D-Towson), would not suspend filing time limitations for public school offenders, though records disclosure provisions would apply equally to Catholic and public schools.

So, is the American Catholic Church, which, though not alone in the molestation mire, has received the lion's share of damages and adverse publicity, being unduly penalized because of latent anti-Catholic bias — or perceived stonewalling the matter?

Calling "one case of abuse too many" and each a "deep tragedy," Baltimore archdiocesan spokesperson Sean Caine noted that in 2005 there were 1,115 cases of reported child sexual abuse in Maryland, "and none of these cases involved a priest."