DC- Catholic officials meet behind closed doors re abuse

By David Clohessy
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
September 17, 2014

http://www.snapnetwork.org/dc_catholic_officials_meet_behind_closed_doors_re_abuse

Today, despite repeated pledges of “openness and transparency,” in a gathering closed to the public and to journalists, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is co-sponsoring a meeting that we suspect will largely focus on the church's on-going clergy sex abuse and cover up crisis.

This week, the International Congress of Canon Law gathers at Catholic University in Washington DC to discuss “Crime and Punishment: Nature, Problems and Perspectives of Canonical Penal Law and Its Relation to Civil Law.”

According to the group's website, “The conference is an academic conference and is not open to the press.”

This is a key component of the crisis in a nutshell: Catholic officials meet in private with other Catholic officials to discuss how Catholic officials should deal with child molesting clerics (and perhaps, with complicit church supervisors). We hope the USCCB and the ICCL will quickly reconsider their decision to keep their deliberations private.

Catholic officials have held thousands of meetings about this crisis. But words and discussion won't fix it. Only decisive action will protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded. What is needed is clear: those who commit and conceal clergy sex crimes must be quickly and publicly exposed, disciplined, and turned over to law enforcement. Catholic officials must post names of proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics on their websites. They must personally and promptly go to every parish where sex offender clerics worked, publicly name them, and beg anyone who saw, suspected or suffered their crimes to call police and get help.

They must demote, not promote, their colleagues and employees who endanger kids by protecting predators, through acts of omission or commission. They must lobby for – not against – reforms to archaic, arbitrary and predator-friendly secular statutes of limitations.

The event began today at 8.00 a.m. at Catholic University of America and runs through Sept. 21. Participants are apparently staying at the Double Tree Hotel, 8727 Colesville Road in Silver Spring.