LINCOLN (NE)
LifeSite
by Hilary White
LINCOLN, April 3, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Patricia O'Donnell Ewers, chairman of the US Conference of Catholic bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection (OCYP), recommended March 30 that the US bishops use "strong fraternal correction" to one of their members who has refused to comply with an annual audit of compliance with national guidelines on sex-abuse programs.
The Bishop for whom the OCYP has recommended the correction is Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, a diocese that is one of the most faithful and has among the lowest rates of child abuse by clerics in the US.
The annual “audit” by the OCYP measures how well dioceses have implemented programs recommended at the 2002 Dallas meeting of the USCCB on the homosexual abuse scandals. This year, however, was the first in which it was suggested the bishops attempt to examine whether the programs of the “Dallas Charter” actually succeed in protecting children. Many parents and other Catholics say they do not and that they are little more than massive PR effort to rehabilitate the bishops’ public image. Many have said the programs do little more than shift responsibility onto the children who are “trained” to protect themselves.
Without holding back his outrage, Bruskewitz has come out swinging. In a statement issued March 31, he wrote, “The Diocese of Lincoln has nothing to be corrected for, since the Diocese of Lincoln is and has always been in full compliance with all laws of the Catholic Church and with all civil laws.”