DES MOINES (IA)
Iowa Catholic Conference
June 3, 2019
By Tom Chapman
The Catholic bishops of Iowa are pledging cooperation with the Iowa Attorney General’s request for information to be voluntarily provided regarding clergy sexual abuse. Please see below for the full text of the statement:
“Last week the Iowa Attorney General asked the state’s four Catholic dioceses to submit, by Aug. 1, 2019, documents related to clergy sexual abuse so that his office can provide a credible third-party review of the response made to reports.
Each diocese, in the interest of transparency and accountability, plans to comply with the Attorney General’s request. In fact, most of the information requested is already a matter of public record. Also, the efforts of each diocese to protect minors from clergy sexual abuse have for many years now been subject to an annual credible third-party review.
Our compliance is inspired by the teachings of Jesus and his Catholic Church: that it is right and good to respond to the sin and crime of clergy sexual abuse with sorrow, repentance, amendment of life, and efforts to repair the harm done.
In this regard, if there have been failures in the past, it is not for lack of trying. And after discovering when and where our efforts have fallen short, we will try again; there is no perfection this side of heaven.
It is our hope that the Attorney General will use the resources of his office to protect minors from the scourge of sexual abuse wherever it occurs, and not limit his focus just on the Catholic Church.”
The Catholic bishops of Iowa are Archbishop Michael Jackels of Dubuque; Bishop R. Walker Nickless of Sioux City; Bishop Richard Pates of Des Moines, and Bishop Thomas Zinkula of Davenport.
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