ATLANTA (GA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
[Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People]
Posted by Barbara Blaine on June 12, 2012
We’re here today to urge America’s Catholic bishops – who are meeting now in Atlanta – to totally scrap and revamp their ten year old child sex abuse policy. We’re asking them to commit to an inclusive, one year planning process with public hearings and “real input,” and reform and broaden this policy. And we are prodding them to adopt a key, missing component – tough penalties for church officials who ignore, conceal and enable child sex crimes.
Finally, we are also urging the prelates to denounce two bishops – one in California and one in Kentucky -for their “complicity” and “violations” in clergy sex cases that arose just last week.
In 2002, in the midst of stunning revelations of child sex crimes by priests and repeated cover ups by bishops, America’s Catholic hierarchy adopted a “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.” It was a belated and begrudging and hasty effort, we believe, that resulted in a weak, vague set of pledges that are often violated, especially since there are virtually no incentives to follow the policies and no punishments for breaking them.
Over the past decade, this policy has repeatedly been weakened – instead of strengthened. The same has happened with the “National Review Board” that was set up to allegedly oversee implementation – it’s become weaker, not stronger.
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