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	Our Promise to Protect By Archbishop John Vlazny Catholic Sentinel April 23, 2009 http://www.sentinel.org/node/9986 In the midst of the terrible scandal of child sexual abuse within our own church community, particularly crimes perpetrated by some of our own clergy and religious, a rainbow of hope appeared after the storm. Catholic communities, under the leadership of their pastors, became committed to doing whatever they could to protect children from the harm caused by such abuse. Across the nation, including here in our own archdiocese, safe environment programs have been established which assist church workers who are involved in one or another form of youth ministry and also protect the young people themselves who one day may find themselves at risk. Unfortunately, some of our people still are not so sure about the appropriateness of church involvement in programs which teach youngsters how to be safe. Complaints have come across my desk that we are doing more harm than good. Experts disagree and so do the members of our church's National Review Board, headed by Judge Michael Merz, a federal judge in Dayton, Ohio. The judge believes that dioceses across this nation who have safe environment programs organized and staffed by professionals have a marvelous opportunity to help the children help themselves and alert adults to recognize abusive or potentially abusive behavior. This month of April has been observed across the Catholic world as Child Abuse Awareness Month. Its purpose is to continue our efforts to educate Catholics on how abuse harms children and what the church is doing to address it. Childhood sexual abuse is a widespread and serious problem, not only in the church, but in society at large. The resources available to offer education in these matters are intended eventually to help our entire population, not simply our fellow Catholics. Judge Merz observed that "child abuse can be subtle at its start. For example, boundary violations can escalate into far more serious abuse." This month's focus on child abuse is another opportunity to get the message out. The United States Department of Health and Human Services reported that there were 905,000 reported child abuse victims in 2006 alone. Many of our people have learned painfully that abuse can damage a child's spirit and change who that person is on a fundamental level. As Catholics we are committed to protecting human life and respecting the dignity of every human person. This is a constant teaching in Sacred Scripture and tradition. When we work together to prevent child abuse we are doing exactly what is expected of us as church. Here in western Oregon we are not experiencing the flood of complaints that we did several years ago, but this is no excuse for lowering our guard. Our intent is that sexual abuse of minors will never happen again within the church. The scandal of child sexual abuse required our attention to many matters at first, such as the healing and reconciliation for victims/survivors, a prompt and effective response to allegations of abuse, cooperation with civil authorities and disciplining of offenders. Providing the safe environment programs took a little more time, but they are now in place here and across our land. The essential components are these: 1) a written Code of Conduct for employees and volunteers who work with young people, 2) training programs for adults whose duties include ongoing, unsupervised contact with minors – such training should include materials on prevention, identification and response and reporting of abuse, 3) training programs for children and young people that include materials on personal safety and 4) a mechanism for background checks of all personnel who have regular contact with minors. There are those who bemoan the fact that children today need to be warned about child abuse. This is indeed unfortunate but we would be in a much better place if this had been done years ago. As more and more people are educated about this matter and the more they talk about it, the greater the awareness about this problem will spread in the community and there will be a much greater likelihood that potential perpetrators will be stopped before they are able to do any damage. In spite of all we have learned the hard way about child sexual abuse, there are still folks who wonder if we are not overstating the case. The answer is "no." In surveys of adults, one out of five women and one out of 10 men have reported that they were sexually molested before they were 18 years old. That means an estimated 40 million adult survivors of child sexual abuse are living in our land today. An estimated 9.6 percent of all school children will be molested by an educator or an employee of a school between kindergarten and 12th grade if we do nothing to protect them. Here in the Archdiocese of Portland we developed a comprehensive child abuse prevention policy back in 2002. Our Office for Child Protection/Victim Assistance began that same year with part-time staffing. In 2006 Cathy Shannon assumed that position on a full-time basis. Her office is commissioned to provide ongoing emotional, psychological and spiritual services to those sexually abused as children and also to expand and strengthen preventative screening, training and education so that children/youth in our programs will find a safe environment in the church. For two years now the archdiocese has offered a safe environment education program known as Called to Protect developed by Praesidium, Inc. Cathy's office has trained more than 350 facilitators to provide the Called to Protect training for employees, staff, volunteers and parents. In addition, age appropriate materials have been developed for students. This year alone more than 9,000 individuals have attended the training. Furthermore, the Archdiocese of Portland performs background checks on all clergy, seminarians, employees and volunteers who have direct contact with children. More than 19,700 background checks have been performed, including those who do not work with children. This year an updated Code of Conduct for clergy, employees and volunteers has been promulgated together with Standards of Conduct for Persons Working with Children. All these documents are available on the archdiocesan Web site. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that Child Abuse Prevention Month is being held during the Easter season. But I find it most fitting that this is the time when we celebrate not only the new life of grace that comes to us through baptism but also highlight the responsibility which is ours to protect the precious gift we have received from God in the lives of our children. Please do what you can to become more informed and involved in keeping our children safe.
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