Ann Allen loved go­ing to church and the af­ter-school so­cial group led by a dy­nam­ic priest back in the 1960s.

The gig­gling fun with friends al­ways end­ed with a game of hide and seek. Each week, the Rev. Lawrence Sabati­no chose one girl to hide with him. Allen said when it was her turn, she was sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed, at age 7, in the re­cess­es of St. Pe­ter’s Catholic Church.

“I don’t re­mem­ber how I got out of that cel­lar and I don’t think I ever will. But I re­mem­ber it like it’s yes­ter­day. I re­mem­ber the smells. The sounds. I re­mem­ber what he said, and what he did,” she said.

Allen, 64, is one of more than two dozen peo­ple who have sued the Ro­man Catholic Dio­cese of Port­land, Maine, over the past year, seek­ing de­layed jus­tice since law­mak­ers al­lowed law­suits for abuse that hap­pened long ago and can’t be pur­sued in crim­i­nal courts ei­ther be­cause of time lim­its or ev­i­dence di­min­ish­ing over time.

More sur­vivors are pur­su­ing cas­es as states in­creas­ing­ly con­sid­er re­peal­ing time lim­its for child sex crime law­suits. Ver­mont was the first state to re­move the lim­its in 2019, fol­lowed by Maine in 2021 and Mary­land this year.

Michi­gan, Rhode Is­land and Mass­a­chu­setts are poised to take ac­tion be­fore their leg­isla­tive ses­sions end.

“The mo­men­tum is ir­re­versible,” said Mar­ci Hamil­ton, CEO of CHILD USA, a think tank aim­ing to pre­vent child abuse and ne­glect.

In April, Mary­land lift­ed time lim­its on child sex­u­al abuse law­suits against in­sti­tu­tions less than a week af­ter the at­tor­ney gen­er­al de­tailed decades of abuse of more than 600 chil­dren by over 150 priests as­so­ci­at­ed with the Arch­dio­cese of Bal­ti­more.

Oth­er states, mean­while, have briefly re­moved the statute of lim­i­ta­tions on law­suits for child­hood abuse. More than 10,000 law­suits were filed when New York set aside time lim­its for two years.

Across the coun­try, those law­suits have tar­get­ed church­es, sum­mer camps, scout groups and oth­er in­sti­tu­tions ac­cused of en­abling pe­dophiles or turn­ing a blind eye to wrong­do­ing.

More states elim­i­nat­ing the lim­its would help achieve jus­tice and pre­ven­tion, ac­cord­ing to ad­vo­cates who say sur­vivors tend to keep the trau­ma to them­selves, backed by new re­search sug­gest­ing sur­vivors typ­i­cal­ly come for­ward in their 50s.

“More and more peo­ple come for­ward as they re­al­ize that they’re not alone,” said Michael Bi­gos, one of Allen’s at­tor­neys, whose law firm has brought 25 law­suits since last June and is eval­u­at­ing more than 100 ad­di­tion­al po­ten­tial cas­es, in­clud­ing about 65 tar­get­ing the Port­land dio­cese.

In his law of­fices, Allen looked at a pho­to of her­self at her first com­mu­nion at St. Pe­ter’s, which serves what was once Port­land’s Lit­tle Italy neigh­bor­hood and hosts a pop­u­lar street par­ty each sum­mer.

The pho­to was tak­en af­ter the as­sault. Her joy and ex­u­ber­ance are gone. “When I look at it, I see a pret­ty dam­aged child,” she said.

Sabati­no quick­ly be­came part of the fab­ric of St. Pe­ter’s when he ar­rived in 1958 af­ter leav­ing an­oth­er church where par­ents re­port­ed to po­lice that he had sex­u­al­ly abused their 6-year-old daugh­ter. The priest was warned by the Dio­cese of Port­land not to en­gage with chil­dren or play games, but was soon do­ing both.

Parish­ioners, in­clud­ing Ann Allen’s fam­i­ly, in­vit­ed him in­to their homes. He vis­it­ed her fam­i­ly’s beach house.

Allen thought she was lucky when she was se­lect­ed to hide with him. But the abuse be­came a dark se­cret she car­ried for decades.

She nev­er con­sid­ered telling her par­ents. Allen said she didn’t think any­one would be­lieve her.

As a school prin­ci­pal in Cal­i­for­nia, Allen was pro­tec­tive of chil­dren, es­pe­cial­ly those who re­port­ed abuse. She would try to help them and say the right things — things she wished had been done for her. Then, she went home to “curl up in a ball,” she said.

But her se­cret came bub­bling back when she re­turned to Maine and had to con­front her past, she said.

Robert Dupuis tells a sim­i­lar sto­ry.

He was 12 years old in 1961 when he was abused by the Rev. John Cur­ran in Old Town, a river­side city in Maine. Decades lat­er, he sought help from Al­co­holic’s Anony­mous when his mar­riage was in jeop­ardy. He ac­knowl­edged the abuse in group ther­a­py, at around age 55, and the rev­e­la­tion changed his life.

“It healed me and it freed me from hold­ing back,” the 74-year-old said.

His mar­riage and friend­ships have im­proved, he said. Now, he en­cour­ages oth­ers who have been abused to come for­ward.

Most of Maine’s new­ly filed civ­il law­suits tar­get the Dio­cese of Port­land, ac­cus­ing lead­ers of ig­nor­ing ac­cu­sa­tions against priests like Sabati­no and Cur­ran, or sim­ply mov­ing them to new parish­es, al­low­ing the abuse to con­tin­ue.

Dio­cese of­fi­cials con­clud­ed that al­le­ga­tions against Sabati­no and Cur­ran were cred­i­ble. Both have long since died.

Maine re­moved its time lim­its in 2000 to sue over child­hood sex­u­al abuse, but not retroac­tive­ly, leav­ing sur­vivors with­out re­course for old­er cas­es. Changes in 2021 al­lowed pre­vi­ous­ly ex­pired civ­il claims. The Leg­is­la­ture al­so is con­sid­er­ing eas­ing the statute of lim­i­ta­tions on crim­i­nal charges for sex­u­al as­saults of chil­dren.

The Port­land dio­cese con­tends sur­vivors had am­ple time to sue and it’s un­con­sti­tu­tion­al to open the door to new lit­i­ga­tion, which could lead to re­quests for dam­ages of “tens of mil­lions of dol­lars.”

A judge re­ject­ed the ar­gu­ments. The dio­cese has ap­pealed to the state supreme court. An at­tor­ney and a spokesper­son for the dio­cese both de­clined com­ment.

For Pa­tri­cia Butkows­ki, it was 1958 when her fam­i­ly alert­ed po­lice that she said Sabati­no as­sault­ed her at a parish in Lewis­ton. Af­ter the dio­cese trans­ferred him to Port­land, Allen and oth­ers be­came vic­tims.

“I’m now at 70 feel­ing emo­tions and al­low­ing my­self to feel emo­tions that I nev­er knew I had. Anger is at the top of it. I’m like a vol­cano spew­ing and there’s just so many emo­tions, and anger at the church,” she said.

Butkows­ki, who now lives in Ok­la­homa City, wants the church to apol­o­gize and ac­knowl­edge the wrongs done to her and oth­ers so she can “hope­ful­ly re­gain some sort of faith be­fore I die,” she said.

“What was done to me by the priest dam­aged my soul,” she said. “I don’t have a soul any­more. It’s bro­ken.”

PORT­LAND, Maine (AP) —