WASHINGTON (DC)
National
By JOE FEUERHERD
Washington
In the two-and-a-half years since the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called upon its members to implement sex-abuse prevention programs in their local churches, nearly every diocese has done so, but questions about the effectiveness of those efforts remain unanswered.
The Report on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, released Feb. 18 by the bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection, noted that 96 percent of the nation’s 195 dioceses and Eastern Rite eparchies were compliant with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People adopted by the bishops at the height of the clergy sex abuse scandal in June 2002.
Between July 26 and mid-December of 2004, the dioceses were visited by representatives of the Gavin Group, a Boston-based firm hired by the bishops’ conference to rate diocesan compliance with the charter. All but one diocese -- Lincoln, Neb. -- participated in the survey.
Three Eastern Rite eparchies and the dioceses of Burlington, Vt., Fresno, Calif., Wheeling-Charleston, W.Va., and Youngstown, Ohio, were found out of compliance with the charter, largely because they either failed to conduct background checks on church employees and volunteers or had not instituted “safe environment programs.”
Posted by kshaw at March 1, 2005 02:51 PM