(Radio Iowa) — Two men who say they were abused by priests joined the Iowa Senate’s Democratic leader today (Wednesday) in calling on Iowa lawmakers to do more for victims of child sex abuse. Senator Janet Petersen, a Democrat from Des Moines, says the state’s attorney general should investigate the Catholic Church. Petersen also says Iowa’s criminal and civil laws for child sex abuse cases are the most restrictive in the nation.

“Our laws do not protect our communities from sexual predators and I think we cannot continue to ignore this,” Petersen said. “There is case after case across this country.” The period for filing CRIMINAL charges is too short, according to Petersen. Child sex abuse victims in Iowa have until they’re 33 years old to file a CIVIL lawsuit. Sixty-seven-year-old John Chambers of Des Moines says studies show 52 is the average age when a victim reveals they were abused as a child.

“Adults that bottled this up and held it in for so many years,” Chambers says. “And there are a lot of us.” Tim Lennon, who grew up in Sioux City, says he was 43 years old when he first remembered being molested by the priest in his childhood church. “Those memories are the fire, the anger that I feel for what happened to me,” Lennon says. “…What happened to me should not happen to another child.”

Lennon, who now lives in Arizona, is a national leader in the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. He plans to hold a news conference outside the Sioux City Diocese office tomorrow (Thursday) morning. Lennon says the Catholic Church should release the names of bishops, nuns and others involved in the church who are accused of sex abuse.