Catholic Bishops Expected to Renew Abuse Policies

c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops are expected to renew three-year-old sexual abuse rules when they meet next week (June 16-18) in Chicago, with no major changes planned for now to the “zero-tolerance” policy against abusive priests. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is likely to keep mostly intact the […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops are expected to renew three-year-old sexual abuse rules when they meet next week (June 16-18) in Chicago, with no major changes planned for now to the “zero-tolerance” policy against abusive priests.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is likely to keep mostly intact the policies that were adopted in 2002 after a nationwide abuse scandal erupted in the Archdiocese of Boston.


The policies, known collectively as the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, as well as the “essential norms” that codified them within church law, expired earlier this year and were granted a temporary extension.

Under the rules, any cleric found guilty of “a single act of sexual abuse of a minor … will be permanently removed from ministry.” Predatory priests could also be defrocked by the Vatican, and they are prohibited from acting or serving as a clergyman.

Two church-sponsored reports found that at least 11,750 victims have lodged credible allegations against 5,148 clerics since 1950 _ including more than 600 new allegations made last year alone. That encompasses roughly 4 percent of all Catholic clergy in the past half-century.

“To those who have been abused, to their families, to the Catholic people, and to the community at large, we say: We bishops will do everything in our power so that such a crisis will not happen again,” says a draft of the revised charter.

Some bishops and priests have complained the rules are too harsh, and leave little room for discretion or forgiveness for age-old offenses. Still, few appear willing to open the rules to major changes.

A note in the revised draft says the “`one-strike’ policy needs to be retained for now, even if it remains unpopular.

“I don’t expect any major changes,” said the Rev. Robert Silva, president of the National Federation of Priests’ Councils, who initially viewed the rules with some skepticism.


“The changes will be very minor, maybe some word changes here and there,” Silva said. “Maybe they have softened the language a little bit, but not weakened it.”

Victims groups, meanwhile, maintain that the Charter lacks real teeth, and complained that no bishops have moved to “strengthen” the charter to require bishops to publicly disclose the names of all accused priests.

“The Charter has been consistently depicted as a strong national binding policy,” said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “In our view it never has been, and it (will be) even less so.”

Minor changes that have been proposed to the Charter include:

_ Tightening the power of bishops to “ensure” that abusive priests are pulled from ministry. The previous charter simply gave a bishop that option but it was not explicitly mandated.

_ Granting accused priests “the presumption of innocence” during an investigation, after priests complained they were denied due process.

_ Giving the bishops’ more direct control over the lay-led National Review Board, which some bishops complained was too autonomous, so that they are not seen as an “independent lay review board.”


_ Allowing bishops to self-report their progress in an annual report, rather than using independent outside auditors to ensure compliance with the Charter.

_ Reworking a complex definition of “sexual abuse” to any violation of the Sixth Commandment, which generally prohibits any sexual misconduct outside of marriage.

Silva said he is convinced that the abuse policies are necessary, and supports them. Still, he has concerns about how long it takes to process cases at the Vatican, and said most priests now see the policies as a fact of life in the U.S. church.

“The priests are resigned to the fact that that’s the way it’s going to be,” he said.

The Chicago meeting will be the first time the bishops have met under the new pope, Benedict XVI, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger assumed jurisdiction over all abuse cases when he headed the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Benedict recently tapped Archbishop William Levada of San Francisco to succeed him at the congregation. Many hope having an American in such a high spot will help unclog the backlog of cases, and provide an advocate for American concerns in the Vatican.


The abuse rules are part of a larger agenda for the bishops, which also includes routine business on Catholic schools, a training program for seminarians and a pastoral letter on world mission.

MO/JL END ECKSTROM

Editors: Search the RNS photo Web site at https://religionnews.com for file photos of Clohessy, Silva, the National Review Board and previous bishops’ meetings.

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