SF Archdiocese Cited for Noncompliance of Anti-Abuse Measures, KCBS, March 12, 2008

SF Archdiocese Cited for Noncompliance of Anti-Abuse Measures

KCBS
March 12, 2008

http://www.kcbs.com/SF-Archdiocese-Cited-For-Noncompliance-of-Anti-Abu/1813054

The San Francisco Archdiocese was cited Wednesday for not complying fully with the church's new rules on preventing sexual abuse.

The latest audit of 190 diocese around the country found all but 12 were following the rules. The San Francisco Archdiocese was one of those that were out of compliance on teaching children, parents and volunteers how to maintain a "safe environment." It was also one of only two diocese that weren't adequately checking the backgrounds of employees and volunteers.

Deacon John Norris, director of the San Francisco church's Office of Child and Youth Protection chalked it up to bad record keeping and assured parents and churchgoers that their children are safe.

"What we have to do is demonstrate that with physical numbers on paper. But that doesn't mean that the finger printing progress isn't going on, the background process isn't going on, the training process isn't going on, because it is," said Norris.

Norris explained it's a matter of improving data collection to prove the Archdiocese is in fact complying with the rules, which he is confident will happen within a month.

The executive director of the conference office conducting the audit promised to follow up to make sure the San Francisco archdiocese fixes the problems.