BishopAccountability.org
	Book Review - before Dallas CathNews February 13, 2009 http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=11744 Anyone who has been confounded by the Church's mishandling of the child sex abuse crisis will benefit from Nicholas Cafardi's detailed account of the Church's response prior to the 2002 approval in Dallas of the US Bishops' Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. As Cafardi, both a civil and canon lawyer, points out, concern about sexual abuse was not born of the 20th century. Collections of canon law have long had provisions on how to handle such offenses by clerics. Why these were not followed, and why other roads were taken instead, serve as the core of the book. Cafardi, one of the original members of the National Review Board set up by the bishops to deal with the sex abuse crisis, minces no words in describing the errors made by the bishops. At the same time he offers a balanced critique, noting the excellent policies enacted in 1992 by the Archdiocese of Chicago under the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin. - US Catholic (click below for full review) Before Dallas: The US Bishops' Response to Clergy Sexual Abuse of Children, Nicholas P. Cafardi (Paulist Press, 2008).
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