US Bishop: Church Must Discover Why Victims Don't Report Abuse

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
February 14, 2012

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1200604.htm

Bishop Conlon (CNS/Paul Haring)

Catholic bishops should find out what is keeping sex abuse victims around the world from coming forward, said Bishop R. Daniel Conlon, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People.

U.N. statistics have shown "that sex abuse is widespread and crosses all cultures and societies" and is not just a phenomenon plaguing the church or Western nations, he told Catholic News Service Feb. 13.

A further indication that abuse is a concern for the global church is the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's mandate for all bishops to establish anti-abuse guidelines by May this year, he said.

"We as a church, we want to be at the forefront of society in helping to deal with this issue so, even in countries where there have not been allegations of abuse in the church, the church can still be a forceful agent for bringing about change in the larger society," he said.

Bishop Conlon, bishop of Joliet, Ill., was in Rome to attend two international gatherings dealing with the church's response to child protection. The first was a Vatican-backed symposium Feb. 6-9 organized by the Pontifical Gregorian University. The other was the Feb. 11-14 Anglophone Conference on the Safeguarding of Children, Young People and Vulnerable Adults.

The Anglophone conference has been meeting every year since 1996 and brings together bishops and experts in child protection to share concerns, successful policies and prevention programs. Bishop Conlon said the annual conference takes a more practical, rather than theoretical, approach to what is happening in the field of protection and how policies can be improved.

The conference, which began as a meeting for bishops from English-speaking countries, has expanded to include lay child protection officers, social workers, lawyers and church leaders from around the world. This year nearly 50 delegates attended from 15 countries, including Chile, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea.

Bishop Conlon said he would like to see even more bishops and representatives attend from Asia and Africa, even if they are not receiving many or any accusations of clerical abuse of minors.

He said, "They would recognize very much that there is domestic abuse" of children, which is also plagued by shame or silence that keeps the tragedy largely hidden.

At next year's Anglophone conference -- to be co-hosted by the United States and Sri Lanka -- "I'd like to have someone address the cultural realities in developing nations," he said, "to help us understand better what makes it unlikely at this point for a victim of sexual abuse as a child to come forward either as a child or later as an adult.

"We know that there's harm that was done. So as much as we find it painful to deal with those allegations, we know that for the sake of the one who was abused, it's beneficial to come forward" and say what has happened, he said.

Bishop Conlon said the Vatican's top investigator of clerical sex abuse, Msgr. Charles Scicluna, spent almost an entire day Feb. 13 with the participants of the Anglophone conference.

The monsignor spoke to the group last year but spent much more time with the group this year going over what the Vatican expects and wants to see in each national conference's abuse guidelines.

He said Msgr. Scicluna talked with participants "very humbly about how important it is for this dialogue to be going on. He wants people to tell him when they think that he's not on the right path in regard to something. And he goes out of his way to say that people do have access to the Holy See, and they should take advantage of that and, at the same time, that the Holy See is listening to what's going on."

Though cases involving the sexual abuse of a minor by clergy "sometimes do not move as quickly as they need to move," there is "no question" that the doctrinal congregation, the office that has juridical control of sex abuse accusations, "is very serious about child abuse and the protection of children.

"There is no question in my mind that putting children first is an article of faith here," the bishop said.

He said the annual conference is an important reminder that putting children first is a task that calls for constant improvement and is "not an issue that's going to pass off of the radar screen."

The protection of children and vulnerable adults has also become an integral part of the church's mission "in the same kind of way the catechesis, the sacraments, supporting families, or taking care of the poor" are part of the church's life, he said.

Bishop Conlon was one of four delegates representing the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The others were Al Notzon of San Antonio, chair of the bishops' National Review Board; Deacon Bernie Nojadera, executive director of the bishops' Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection; and Mercy Sister Mary Ann Walsh, USCCB director of media relations.