LOUISVILLE (KY)
The Indiana Gazette
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (AP) - The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has formally adopted constitutional changes aimed at preventing and punishing sexual abuse by clergy.
The ratification of 11 constitutional changes by presbyteries, or regional governing bodies, of the Louisville-based denomination comes three years after a report on the sexual abuse of children of missionaries at boarding schools in the Congo, the church announced this past week.
The new regulations, which will become part of the church's Book of Order on July 3, impose stricter requirements for reporting abuse to civil authorities and give accusers more say in the disciplinary process.
"It's a beginning, and I hope that the passage brings the subject before the (individual) churches so they will all write policies and procedures, so they'll know what to do" in cases of abuse, said Pat Hendrix, the sexual-misconduct ombudsman for the denomination's Worldwide Ministries Division.
In 2002, the 2.4-million-member Protestant denomination documented cases of abuse of the children of missionaries to the Congo extending from the 1940s into the 1970s. Most of the abuse was blamed on an American missionary, William Pruitt, who died in 1999 and was also accused of abusing children in the United States.