Rights of Accused Priests: Toward a Revision of the Dallas Charter and the ‘Essential Norms’

By Avery Dulles, S.J.
America
June 21-28, 2004

http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=3638

Since World War II, the Catholic Church has become a leading champion of the inviolable rights of individual human persons. Applying this principle, the bishops of the United States in November 2000 published Responsibility and Rehabilitation, a critique of the American criminal justice system, in which they upheld the dignity of the accused and rejected slogans such as “three strikes and you’re out.” Among other things, the bishops stated: “One-size-fits-all solutions are often inadequate.... We must renew our efforts to ensure that the punishment fits the crime. Therefore, we do not support mandatory sentencing that replaces judges’ assessments with rigid formulations.”

“Finally,” they said, “we must welcome ex-offenders back into society as full participating members, to the extent feasible.”

In the case of the sexual abuse crisis, the United States bishops have taken positions at odds with these high principles. Meeting at Dallas in June 2002 under the glare of adverse publicity and under intense pressure from various survivors’ networks, they hastily adopted, after less than two days of debate, the so-called Dallas charter and an accompanying set of norms that were intended, after approval by the Holy See, to be legally binding in the United States.

[To read this essay in full, please see the original publication in America magazine.]