By Daniel Burke
District Chronicles
July 4, 2011
http://media.www.districtchronicles.com/media/storage/paper263/news/2011/07/03/DivineIntervention/Catholic.Bishops.Punt.On.Child.Sexual.Abuse.Rules-3999807.shtml
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| Media Credit: boston.com |
The nation's Roman Catholic bishops this month overwhelmingly voted to maintain current church policies on the sexual abuse of children, making only minor tweaks to policies that critics say contain large loopholes.
The bishops voted 187-5, with four abstentions, to make only slight revisions to their Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, a set of guidelines adopted in 2002 as the clergy sex abuse scandal spread nationwide.
They argue the current rules are effective, pointing to a sharp decline in new incidents of abuse since 2002. But victims' advocates say recent reports of ethical lapses by church leaders in Philadelphia and Kansas City, Mo., prove that the nonbinding church policies are weak and unenforceable.
"Despite revelations in numerous dioceses showing that abuse has been continuing under the bishops' current abuse policy and that the policy needs to be overhauled, the bishops ... chose to rubber stamp a nearly identical policy for the future," said the watchdog Web site BishopAccountability.org in a statement.
"This is a squandered opportunity and a disaster for children."
Most of the revisions approved here bring the U.S. bishops' policies in line with Vatican norms issued in 2010, which equate child abuse with abusing the mentally disabled, and make the acquisition, possession, or distribution of child pornography a church crime.
The bishops also adopted two revisions proposed by Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley. One requires bishops to follow civil laws about reporting sexual abuse accusations against fellow bishops to civil authorities, just as they are expected to do for priests.
O'Malley's other amendment accords the bishops' guidelines with federal statutes that outlaw pornographic images of children under the age of 18. A previous bishops' proposal had included only children under age 14.
"Without this change, we will likely experience much criticism and diminished confidence by way of providing exceptions for some circumstances of offenses with minors," O'Malley wrote in proposing the revision.
The bishops rejected an impassioned plea from Archbishop Francis Hurley, the former head of the diocese of Anchorage, Alaska, to drop their "zero tolerance" policy, which permanently bars credibly accused priests from ministry.
"In the mind of most people, and in my own mind, when we say reconciliation and forgiveness, we mean the embrace of that person back into the community and the fold. We are not doing that with the priests and the priests feel that very much," Hurley said.
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