ORLANDO (FL)
OSV News [Huntington IN]
June 12, 2026
By Gina Christian
During the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops‘ annual spring meeting, held June 10-12 this year in Orlando, OSV News discussed forthcoming revisions of the bishops’ “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” with Bishop Barry C. Knestout of Richmond, Virginia, chair of the USCCB’s Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People, and Deacon Bernie Nojadera, executive director of the USCCB’s Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection.
Commonly known as the “Dallas Charter” — instituted by the US Catholic bishops at their 2002 meeting in Dallas, Texas, as the scope of the clerical abuse scandals emerged publicly — it lays out a comprehensive set of procedures for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy. The charter, whose revisions the U.S. bishops approved in a June 11 vote, also includes guidelines for reconciliation, healing, accountability and prevention of abuse.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
OSV News: During the plenary discussions, you made clear the charter must remain focused on child protection, and not take on the issue of adult protection. Why did you feel it was so important to make that clarification?
Bishop Knestout: Our mandate was to keep it focused on clergy abuse of children and young people. And the charter has been a very good, strong instrument regarding our response as a Church, as bishops and as priests to that issue. It’s able to help build some trust in our community regarding our accountability and transparency in addressing abuse.
OSV News: Both civil and canon law play roles in addressing clergy sexual abuse. Is there any interplay between the two in the charter?
Bishop Knestout: Canon law is very clearly in focus here, because civil law tends to be different depending on the jurisdiction, whereas canon law applies uniformly across every diocese and every priest and bishop.
We concentrated on making sure the revisions aligned with canonical provisions in the (updated) Book VI of canon law (the section of the Church’s main administrative code that specifies penal sanctions; revisions took place under both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, culminating in the latter’s 2021 apostolic constitution “Pascite Gregem Dei”).
And we wanted the charter revisions to align with other documents from the Holy See that do have the force of law — “Vos Estis Lux Mundi” (which outlines how the Church should deal with clergy sexual abuse, including procedures for investigating bishops) and the vademecum (issued by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in June 2022) on processes for implementing responses to accusations of abuse.
We tried to make sure the charter was aligned with what has happened in the Church since 2018 (when a number of clerical abuse scandals emerged) and all the other adaptations or adjustments that have occurred in canon law since then.
Deacon Nojadera: I would add that the Church is looking at possible legislation coming forward specific to spiritual abuse and other forms of abuse. There are developments coming down from the Holy See, from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. The U.S. Catholic Church stands ready once those documents do come forward. We are looking at a review (of the charter) in seven years’ time, so we would again have that opportunity for further discussion and discernment.
Bishop Knestout: I’m going to use an analogy here, since my background is in architecture. We had a situation (in 2002) where the Church was in the midst of a storm: the abuse crisis. The environment was very challenging for us, because of the damage done. The actions taken were heinous, offensive, and both criminal and immoral by clergy, harming many young people, many children.
That all came to light, and the bishops of 25 years ago were in the wilderness in this, without a whole lot of resources. They had to pull together some kind of shelter for the Church to be able to address this issue in a way that would bring in those who need to be protected and cared for, and those who need to be responded to. The bishops had to pull together what sources and tools they had at the time, and they did a good job. It was very creative, very important; it provided shelter for the family of faith.
And that’s what the charter’s done: provide that shelter and warmth for the Church to respond to this issue, so that we can rebuild the trust of our people, so harmed and broken.
Now, there’s always a hope that you would have a better shelter, and over time, we’ve tried to improve that shelter, making it more adequate for the circumstances.
But there’s still a storm out there, and still items that we need to address. That more elaborate construction is an ongoing project that’s unfolding. There are dioceses that are going through bankruptcy; there’s a lot of suffering that’s experienced right now. There are victim survivors who still have the vivid recollections, and they’re going through processes of trying to seek some kind of justice for their situation.
I think there will be a time that comes where there might be more elaborate, fuller constructions that will be able to meet a lot of the other needs.