KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter
August 20, 2018
By Fr. Peter Daly
In late April of 2002, Pope John Paul II summoned all the American cardinals to Rome for an emergency meeting to discuss the “American problem” of the sexual abuse scandal. It was dominating news coverage in the United States, and the bishops’ meeting in Dallas that June would be covered live on national television. Nothing much happened in Rome. The pope addressed the cardinals. A statement full of platitudes about concern and condemnation was issued. But no real accountability.
When the cardinals returned home, only one, Theodore McCarrick, had the courage to make himself available to the press. I was impressed. At least he seemed to “get” the gravity of the situation. At least he was willing to take questions.
When McCarrick came back from Rome, he summoned all the priests of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., to a mandatory meeting at the Franciscan Monastery near the Catholic University of America in Washington. We were eager to go. It would be our first chance to discuss the clergy sexual abuse scandal with our archbishop. There were over 200 priests present.
The meeting lasted more than two hours. For the first hour, the press was present in the room. The cardinal made a long statement and took a few questions from the reporters. Then the press and the archdiocesan lay staff were ushered out. Only the priests remained in the room with the cardinal and our auxiliary bishops.
It was a typical hierarchical meeting. The cardinal and bishops sat up front. McCarrick came to a microphone and spent a long time discussing what would become known as the “Dallas charter” (Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People), which prescribed how priests were to be treated henceforth, when accused of sexual abuse of a minor. The charter would be discussed in the bishops’ meeting in Dallas, and McCarrick was on the committee drafting it. It set up review boards and child protection offices. It prescribed an “audit” to be carried out by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice* to determine the scope of the situation. There was a mechanism to handle accusations against priests and a “zero-tolerance” policy. But there was no oversight for bishops.
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