SANTA CLARA (CA)
National Catholic Reporter
May. 11, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Ten years after widespread news coverage of sexual abuse by priests rocked the U.S. Catholic church, hierarchical response to the continuing crisis indicates the church has “lost its ability to be a self-correcting institution,” Jesuit Fr. Tom Reese told a symposium of experts on clergy abuse today.
Reese delivered the keynote speech this morning at a daylong conference titled “Clergy Sexual Abuse Ten Years Later,” being held at Jesuit-run Santa Clara University. Following Reese is a series of panel discussions from a wide-range of sex abuse experts.
Among the speakers are some who firmly defend the U.S. bishops’ response to the crisis, particularly since the implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in 2002 and others who sometimes vehemently point to its weaknesses.
The presenters include Kathleen McChesney, the first director of the U.S. bishops office of child and youth protection; Ohio Judge Michael Merz, a former member and chair of the bishops’ National Review Board; Dominican Fr. Tom Doyle, a canon lawyer known for authoring one of the first reports on the subject; and Barbara Blaine, founder and president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
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