CHICAGO (IL)
Catholic News Service
By Jerry Filteau
Catholic News Service
CHICAGO (CNS) -- As they have been at every U.S. Catholic bishops' meeting since June 2002, clergy sexual abuse of minors and the protection of children from such abuse were a significant part of the June 16-18 meeting in Chicago of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Major items on this June's agenda were approval of revisions of the 2002 "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People" and the related "Essential Norms" implementing the charter legislatively.
The bishops adopted those documents by respective votes of 229-3 and 228-4.
As a legislative text the norms still need Vatican approval. But Vatican rejection seemed quite unlikely since the final version approved by the bishops had only four minor variations from the draft jointly developed by U.S. and Vatican officials: a correction of a typographical error, the addition of a missing canon law reference and two minor editorial changes intended to clarify the meaning of the text.