BALTIMORE (MD)
The Baltimore Sun
November 15, 2018
By Jonathan M. Pitts
The nation’s conference of Catholic bishops announced Wednesday that it will return to Baltimore in June for an assembly as leaders grapple with a sex abuse crisis that has engulfed the church in the United States.
The move represents a change in plans for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which was to have held its week-long summer gathering next year in Santa Barbara, Calif.
The bishops’ fall meeting — held for years in Baltimore — traditionally centers on business and agenda-setting for the approximately 300 leaders of the nation’s nearly 200 dioceses. The June assembly, which is held in different locations each year, typically includes elements of a retreat.
Speaking between sessions Wednesday on the final day of the 2018 meeting at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront, Baltimore Archbishop William Lori said that with the clergy abuse crisis dominating church affairs, conference leaders decided to treat the June assembly as a business gathering as well, and Baltimore — site of the nation’s oldest diocese — has proved an excellent site for such meetings.
Msgr. J. Brian Bransfield, general secretary of the conference, told the bishops at the end of the day that the meeting will be June 11-19.
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