In response to Pennsylvania grand jury report, Cardinal DiNardo, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) joined Bishop Timothy L. Doherty of Lafayette in Indiana, in issuing the following joint statement.
Bishop Doherty is Chairman for the USCCB's Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People.
The report of the Pennsylvania grand jury again illustrates the pain of those who have been victims of the crime of sexual abuse by individual members of our clergy, and by those who shielded abusers and so facilitated an evil that continued for years or even decades. We are grateful for the courage of the people who aided the investigation by sharing their personal stories of abuse. As a body of bishops, we are shamed by and sorry for the sins and omissions by Catholic priests and Catholic Bishops.
We are profoundly saddened each time we hear about the harm caused as a result of abuse, at the hands of a clergyman of any rank.
The USCCB Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People and the office of the Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection will continue to offer avenues to healing for those who have been abused. We are committed to work in determined ways so that such abuse cannot happen.
The Pennsylvania grand jury report covers a span of more than 70 years.
In 2002 the U.S. Catholic bishops adopted the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which commits us to respond promptly and compassionately to victims, report the abuse of minors, remove offenders and take ongoing action to prevent abuse. This Charter was revised and updated in 2011 and again in 2018.
We pledge to maintain transparency and to provide for the permanent removal of offenders from ministry and to maintain safe environments for everyone. All policies and procedures regarding training and background check requirements are made publicly available by dioceses and eparchies.
We pray that all survivors of sexual abuse find healing, comfort and strength in God's loving presence as the Church pledges to continue to restore trust through accompaniment, communion, accountability and justice.
In other words, “Sorry folks but the time ran out for you to file criminal and, in some cases, civil trials against your “abusers” and those who protected “them” and not you.
Ignore the fact that a goodly number of the abusers were shielded from such prosecution due to a willful strategy to require confidentiality agreements in financial settlements as a tool of extortion.
We, Bishops, know you got a raw deal but that’s how it goes.
We are a different Church now, so stop looking back on the past. We can’t change it!
But trust us, it won’t happen again!"
Sounds more like a video seminar for training used-car salesmen than a frank and candid acceptance of the gross violation against the innocent by the Clergy and by those Bishops and diocesan officials who acted more like CEO's protecting "the corporation" rather than Pastors seeking to right the wrongs they themselves perpetrated and abetted by their silence.
Until the Bishops are willing to publicly condemn the failings of their membership and demand that they themselves be held accountable to the same standards they are so eager to use to condemn their Priests, Bishops will fail to begin the long and painful process of healing a critically wounded Church.
So far, they have shown that they are an incalcitrant lot.
May the Holy Spirit open their minds and hearts and help them in holding themselves accountable for the grave injury they have caused to the Church.
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