NEWARK (NJ)
NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
February 1, 2018
By Erin Banco
More than six dozen parishes and schools in the Archdiocese of Newark may be out of compliance with a policy meant to protect children from sexual abuse, documents obtained by NJ Advance Media show.
Sixteen years ago, after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops passed the historic Dallas charter meant to address the allegations of sexual misconduct in the church, dioceses across the U.S. were required to implement background checks and training for all staffers and volunteers working with children.
As part of that policy and in order to sustain accountability, parishes and schools were required to submit annual reports to the diocese listing the workers who had completed the screening and training and those who had not.
Documents obtained by NJ Advance Media show that in the Newark archdiocese, 24 percent of the parishes in 2017 did not submit a compliance report. That means 53 parishes could be fielding teachers, volunteers and other workers who may not have passed a background check, said an employee within the archdiocese.
However, it is unclear if all or some of the parishes and 13 schools included in the 2017 documents simply failed to file the paperwork in time or actually did not conduct the background screenings.
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