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	Bishops: Revisions Don't Weaken Child Protection Charter By Jerry Filteau The Tidings [United States] June 24, 2005 When the U.S. bishops overwhelmingly approved revisions in the charter and norms to protect children and deal with clergy sex abuse June 17, they did not weaken either document, Archbishop Harry J. Flynn of St. Paul-Minneapolis told reporters at the final press conference of the bishops' spring meeting in Chicago. The archbishop, who has headed the bishops' Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse for the past three years, said the bishops continue to have a "zero tolerance" policy on such abuse. He said their policy follows the principle enunciated by the late Pope John Paul II that there is no room in the priesthood for those who would abuse children. The bishops approved revisions in their "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People" by a 228-4 vote and changes in the "Essential Norms" implementing the charter legislatively, 229-3. In other actions related to dealing with child sexual abuse by clergy and the prevention of such abuse, the bishops: ---Committed themselves to providing up to $1 million from their own reserve funds to help finance a planned study on the causes and context of such abuse; the study is expected to cost between $2 million and $5 million. ---Adopted by a vote of 223-4 a "Statement of Episcopal Commitment" outlining how they will deal with one another in seeking to assure full implementation of the charter and norms in all dioceses. ---Elevated the Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse to the level of a permanent committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The restructured committee has been renamed the Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People, and Archbishop Flynn was appointed its chairman until the bishops can conduct a regular election for a new chairman this November. Continuing action to deal with clergy sexual abuse of minors and its prevention, especially through the revision of the charter and norms, was the biggest issue facing the U.S. bishops at their June 16-18 meeting in Chicago. Those two key documents were originally adopted in 2002 with a projected two-year life span before review. That life span was extended when the bishops were not able to make the revisions at their November 2004 meeting because a consultation with the Vatican over revision of the norms was not yet completed. The revisions in the "Essential Norms" were few and limited in scope. Since they have the force of law, Vatican approval is required before the revisions can take effect. The bishops approved the revised charter, norms and episcopal commitment statement for five years, intending to review all three at the end of that time. Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago, U.S. leader of the mixed commission of Vatican and U.S. church officials that drafted revisions of the norms, said the biggest change was adopting the definition of sexual abuse of minors found in the Code of Canon Law as the definition to be used in the norms. Since the norms deal with legal procedures in the church when a priest or deacon is accused of breaking the church law against clerical sexual activity with minors, it only made sense to use the code's own legal definition of the crime in the norms, he said. Several other changes in the norms also simply reflected more precision in legal terminology, such as inserting "canonical" before "due process" at one point and, at another point, inserting a note that an accused cleric "enjoys the presumption of innocence" during the investigation of the allegation. The section on the applicability of the norms to clerics in religious orders was rewritten, with appropriate canon law references added, to state more clearly the autonomy of religious orders over the internal life of their community, while affirming the bishop's authority to prohibit a religious who has abused a minor from engaging in any public ministry in his diocese. The charter has been rewritten extensively to reflect the fact that its provisions have now been in place since June 2002. The main work of dioceses now is continuing implementation --- not establishing new policies, programs, offices and other structures to meet charter requirements initially, as many dioceses had to do when it was first adopted. In the revised charter the relationship of the bishops' conference and its officers with the National Review Board and USCCB Office of Child and Youth Protection is spelled out more clearly. Conference officials emphasized that changes in that area did not weaken the authority of the board, which monitors implementation of the charter in every diocese. The original charter contained 17 articles spelling out specific projects, policies, programs and structures that the bishops would set up nationally and in their dioceses. These included: ---Removing from ministry any priests and deacons who have sexually abused minors. ---Reaching out to victims and their families pastorally and in other ways. ---Notifying civil authorities when church personnel are accused of molesting minors. ---Establishing sexual abuse awareness and safe environment programs and policies throughout dioceses, parishes and schools, including background checks on priests, other church personnel and volunteers who work with children. ---Forming diocesan review boards to review cases independently and hire victim outreach coordinators. ---Creating a National Review Board and an Office of Child and Youth Protection, with responsibility for monitoring dioceses for compliance with the charter and reporting the findings annually. ---Conducting two major national studies on clergy sexual abuse of minors, one on its nature and scope and the other on its causes and context. The revised version retains all 17 articles, although portions of Article 5 that repeated legal provisions of the "Essential Norms" were deleted as unnecessary and redundant. Throughout the revision the future tense verbs of the original charter are changed to the present tense because the charter is already operational. For example, "will be" has been changed to "are to be," and references to creation of the review board and national office have been changed to reflect the fact that they have been established. The revised preamble to the charter reflects what the bishops have done since 2002 to implement its policies and procedures. On one of the most debated substantive issues, the revision remains firm: "For even a single act of sexual abuse of a minor ... the offending priest or deacon is to be permanently removed from ministry and, if warranted, dismissed from the clerical state." When a reporter asked Archbishop Flynn about complaints from leaders of victims' groups that the bishops' response to sexual abuse is still insufficient, the archbishop said, "Look about you. See what has happened in the past three years and see what is going to happen in the next three." He said some victims' groups have assisted the bishops in that work, but "there are others that, no matter what we did or said, it would not be satisfactory." The commitment of the bishops to protect children and root out sexual abuse "is evident in every vote and decision we have made," he said. The "Statement of Episcopal Commitment" is a slight revision of one adopted in 2002. It notes that since bishops "are directly accountable to the Holy See," the charter and special U.S. norms cannot be applied to bishops in the same way as it applies to priests and deacons. "In cases of an allegation of sexual abuse of minors by bishops, we will apply the requirements of the charter also to ourselves, respecting always church law as it applies to bishops," it says. "In such cases we will inform the apostolic nuncio," the papal representative to the United States. The statement pledges the bishops to procedures and practices of moral responsibility to one another and mutual support and correction in helping one another interpret and implement the charter correctly.