ATLANTA (GA)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
BY TIM TOWNSEND ttownsend@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8221
ATLANTA • The U.S. Catholic bishops who gathered in Atlanta for their annual spring meeting spent Wednesday morning grappling with the sins of the past, marking the 10th anniversary of the clergy sex abuse crisis that crippled the church.
In the afternoon, they turned toward the future, and a looming battle with the federal government over an issue they say could cripple its mission in a different way.
In June 2002, the bishops met in Dallas as the abuse scandal, which first erupted in Boston, was raging across the country. What became known as the Dallas Charter was a set of norms the bishops agreed to that they hoped would stop the crisis and prevent the future abuse of children by priests, deacons and bishops. At the time, the bishops also founded a National Review Board, a committee of lay men and women who would study the issue and collaborate with the bishops to help prevent future abuse.
In a progress report released to the bishops Wednesday, the National Review Board said that a decade after the crisis, “There has been striking improvement in the Church’s response to and treatment of victims.” But it also acknowledged that “much work still needs to be done.” …
Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, said in a statement that the National Review Board in its report had “gratified the bishops but failed their fellow Catholics.”
“The last thing bishops need is more flattery,” Doyle said. “They need a tough national review board and tough diocesan review boards to challenge them on their continued dangerous practices.”
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