BishopAccountability.org
	The Church of Pittsburgh and Safe Environment for Children Pittsburgh Catholic July 13, 2010 http://www.pittsburghcatholic.org/newsarticles_more.phtml?id=2822 What has the church done to address the tragedy of the sexual abuse of children and to provide a safe environment for children in Catholic environments? • The Catholic Church in the United States put in place in 2002 a 17-point comprehensive "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People." • This codified for the church in the United States as a whole an entire series of best practices in addressing this tragic issue that had already been in place in some dioceses for at least a decade or more, including the Diocese of Pittsburgh. It built on the bishops' own work in 1993. • The key elements of the "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People" are: 1) we respond with compassion to victims/survivors; 2) we work diligently to screen those working with children and young people in the church; 3) we provide child abuse awareness and prevention education; 4) we report any accusations of suspected abuse to civil law enforcement; and 5) we account for our efforts to protect children and youth through an outside annual national audit of our practices. • The result of the most recent annual audit — conducted by an outside investigative agency made up primarily of former FBI agents covering July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2009 — found that dioceses invested more than $21 million for child protection efforts such as training programs, background checks and staff support. • Additionally, concise and clear mandates and procedures for reporting any suspected abuse have been put in place. • Almost 6 million, or 96 percent, of children in Catholic schools or religious education programs underwent safe environment training. • The audit found that background evaluations were performed on more than 2 million priests, deacons, seminarians, educators, employees and volunteers. • The Diocese of Pittsburgh will be audited this fall for the 2009-2010 year. This independent audit team — the Gavin Group, made up of former FBI agents — has audited the diocese every year, and we have always exceeded the norms of full compliance. • The audit itself — it will take place in October this year — involves questioning of pastoral administration (including the bishop) and audits of parishes randomly selected by the auditors themselves. • As of last year's audit, the diocese had well over 40,000 priests, seminarians, religious, teachers and volunteers screened by secular authorities and trained in safe environment issues. • Our guidelines on those who must be screened and trained far exceed the demands of the charter or Pennsylvania law where applicable. We have lay extraordinary ministers of holy Communion and ushers who have served their parishes for decades, yet are still required to undergo screening from secular authorities and safe environment training. • Our individual parishes are audited by visiting teams from diocesan administration. • Six teams have been auditing for compliance 60 parishes through personal visits with parish pastors and staff in June. • Combined with the parishes already audited by the diocesan teams and the audits planned in the next 12 months, every parish will be visited and screened. And when that process is completed, we will start all over again. • All employees and volunteers in a parish, school or religious education program in the diocese that have contact with children — and that includes just about everyone from the groundskeeper to the pastor — are required to have clearances from the state police and the Department of Public Welfare. • All take part in safe environment and youth protection training programs. • All are trained in Pennsylvania law concerning the mandated reporting of suspected abuse of minors. • All review and sign off on the diocesan Code of Pastoral Conduct that makes clear the proper and required norms of behavior from those representing the church. • All parishes have a written and publicized set of procedures for dealing with accusations of sexual abuse, including the mandated reporting of any allegations to secular authorities. • All are registered on a diocesan database that monitors that they have met these criteria. For additional information on the diocese's efforts to prevent child abuse, visit http://www.diopitt.org/abuse_home.php.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.