CHICAGO (IL)
Toledo Blade
CHICAGO - Catholic bishops reviewing their guidelines on clerical sexual abuse said yesterday that they will keep their "zero-tolerance" policy for ousting alleged perpetrators and will consider only minor revisions to policies implemented three years ago.
Speaking to 262 members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops meeting here through tomorrow, Archbishop Harry Flynn of St. Paul and Minneapolis said the proposed changes are based on three years of experience working with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
That landmark document, adopted in Dallas after the national church scandal erupted in Boston in January, 2002, calls for the removal from the ministry of any cleric facing even a single credible allegation of sexual abuse of a minor.
The charter initially was to be reviewed in 2004, but the review was delayed one year.
The revisions being considered are "intended to strengthen our original commitment, and the charter itself, in light of our experience, by clarifying how it can more effectively achieve its goals," Archbishop Flynn said.
Among the 28 proposed changes to the 12-page charter, for example, are including deacons along with priests and bishops in defining clerical sexual abuse, and changing the status of the ad hoc committee on sexual abuse to a permanent standing committee of the bishops' conference.
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago said the bishops had discussed the possibility of returning some clerical sexual abusers, depending on the circumstances, to supervised church work that does not involve parish work or exposure to children.