DUBLIN (IRELAND)
The Irish Catholic
November 15, 2018
Following Monday’s shock announcement that the Vatican has requested the US Catholic Bishops to delay voting on new standards for bishop accountability, survivors of sexual abuse and bishop accountability activists decried the move as “totally unacceptable”.
Terence McKiernan, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, called the move a “pre-emptive strike” by the Vatican against US bishops as they seek to respond to the current crisis of sexual abuse and its cover-up “in a modest way”.
Peter Isley, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse who now works with the organisation Ending Clergy Abuse, said the decision from the Vatican effectively means: “We care more about our organisation and our princely titles and positions” than enacting measures of accountability.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is gathered in Baltimore this week for its General Assembly, in which they were expected to enact new standards of conduct and accountability for bishops engaged in sexual abuse or its cover-up. At the start of Monday’s meeting, however, USCCB president Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, announced that he had received a request on Sunday afternoon to postpone the vote until after a global summit on the crisis at the Vatican in February.
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