CHICAGO (IL)
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Kevin Eckstrom
Religion News Service
The nation's Roman Catholic bishops are expected to renew 3-year-old sexual-abuse rules when they meet next week in Chicago, with no major changes planned 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 a temporary extension was granted.
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 also could 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.
Posted by kshaw at June 11, 2005 12:42 PM