Abuse allegations against Catholic clergy and religious in the U.S. declined last year, but challenges remain regarding protecting vulnerable adults and ensuring online safety, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

On July 14, the USCCB's Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection released the "2022 Annual Report- Findings and Recommendations on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People."

USCCB President Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of Military Services said in his preface the report was "a milestone accounting of the continued efforts in the ministry of protection, healing, and accompaniment."

The document — covering the period July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022 — consists of a progress report from the secretariat; an audit report conducted by the Rochester, New York-based consultants StoneBridge Business Partners; and a survey of abuse allegations and costs by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University.

Now in its 12th year of performing the audit, StoneBridge visited 62 dioceses and eparchies, 48 in person and 14 virtually.

The report itself is the 20th of its kind since 2002, when the U.S. bishops established the "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People" as a number of clerical abuse scandals emerged.

Commonly called the "Dallas Charter" for the city in which the bishops met at the time of its ratification, the document lays out a comprehensive set of procedures for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy. The charter also includes guidelines for reconciliation, healing, accountability and prevention of abuse.

During the 2022 report period, 1,998 individuals came forward with 2,704 allegations of abuse, with claims down 399 from 2021 and 1,548 from 2020. The decrease was largely due to resolutions of allegations received through lawsuits, compensation programs and bankruptcies. Most allegations (83%) were initially brought to diocesan officials by an attorney.

Sixteen reports during the period involved current minors, with all other allegations made by adults citing abuse as minors.

The CARA portion of the report said that 194 responding dioceses and eparchies had judged 245 allegations of sexual abuse of a minor by a priest or deacon to be credible. Of those, 20 allegations involved children who were under the age of 18.

CARA also calculated that total costs incurred by dioceses and eparchies due to allegations were down 19% from the previous year, totaling over $157 million. (Costs for men's religious communities, by contrast, rose 53 percent, approaching $45 million.)

The secretariat said in its assessment "the year-over-year trends are encouraging as the number of current minor allegations in the U.S. remains low."

Many dioceses and eparchies "have taken certain measures that go beyond the specific requirements of the charter," StoneBridge noted in its report.

Among the measures cited were recurring adult training, parish audits and background check renewals (which are not currently required by the charter).

However, StoneBridge found that more than 30 percent of dioceses and eparchies it had visited during the report period struggled with "some dysfunction" in their review boards, including "lack of meetings, inadequate composition or membership, not following the by-laws of the board, members not confident in their duties (and) lack of rotation of members."

Auditors pointed out an unevenness in the charter's overall application, with "196 different implementations" of the document resulting from the various policies of dioceses and eparchies.

Another concern centers on the protection of "vulnerable adults," a definition for which is not contained in the charter, said auditors.

A year after the charter's most recent revision in 2018, Pope Francis issued the motu proprio "Vox Estis Lux Mundi" ("You are the light of the world"), outlining global legal procedures for how the church should deal with clergy sexual abuse, including procedures for investigating bishops.

The document, implemented for a three-year experimental period beginning June 1, 2019, included the term "vulnerable person," defined as "any person in a state of infirmity, physical or mental deficiency, or deprivation of personal liberty which, in fact, even occasionally, limits their ability to understand or to want or otherwise resist the offense."

On March 25, Pope Francis published an updated version with the specific term "vulnerable adults," without altering the previous definition. The revised text also was broadened to include investigations of leaders of Vatican-recognized international Catholic lay associations and movements.

Yet Suzanne Healy, chairwomen of the lay-led USCCB National Review Board, highlighted findings by StoneBridge in her remarks in this report, saying that while the charter addresses clerical abuse of children, "there is confusion in reporting matters pertaining to "Vos Estis Lux Mundi" and canon law regarding penal sanctions.

The board "recommends the pursuit of a separate auditable resource with specific guidelines for these adult and lay matters of abuse," she wrote.

The audit results represent 194 of the 196 dioceses and eparchies in the U.S., with the report listing the Chaldean Eparchy of St. Peter the Apostle and St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy as not participating.

Father Richard Janowicz, vicar general and safe environment coordinator for the Chicago-based St. Nicholas Eparchy, said in an email to OSV News he was "quite surprised" to learn the eparchy had been listed as such, since it had been audited by StoneBridge on April 17 of this year, and confirmed in a June 21 letter that the eparchy had remediated its initial lack of a children's safe environment training program. It remains unclear as to why the eparchy was listed in the report as “not participating,” and OSV News has reached out to the USCCB for clarification.

Father Simon Esshaki, secretary to Bishop Emanuel Shaleta of the St. Peter Eparchy in El Cajon, California, said in an email to OSV News that the eparchy "did in fact have a full 'Protecting God's Children' program for 2022," but "unfortunately for some reason the statistics were not shared with the USCCB."

The dioceses of Birmingham, Ala., Lubbock, Texas, and St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands were each found noncompliant regarding Article 2 of the Dallas Charter, which in part specifies a required review board, comprised of mostly laypeople not employed by the diocese, that meets regularly and serves as a consultative body to the bishop. Each diocese subsequently corrected the deficiency.

For the Birmingham Diocese, the problem was one of timing, Donald Carson, director of communications and public relations, told OSV News.

Two resignations due to health concerns and the transfer of a religious sister left three vacancies on that review board during the audit period. The seats "have since all been filled, bringing the number of representatives not employed by the diocese back in compliance with the requirements of the charter," he said in an email to OSV News.

In the Lubbock Diocese, COVID was at its height during the reporting period and had "stopped many areas of our work," Lucas Flores, communications director, told OSV News in an email, adding that the diocese had resumed review board meetings.

OSV News was awaiting a response from the Diocese of St. Thomas.

Pope Francis was among those showing their support for retired Pope Benedict XVI, sending his predecessor "a beautiful letter," according to the former pope's secretary.

In the letter, Pope Francis "speaks as a shepherd, as a brother" and "expressed once again his complete trust, his full support and also his prayers," said the secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein.

The archbishop spoke to the Italian news program TG1 Feb. 9 about the retired pope's letter in response to a report on sexual abuse cases in the German Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, which the former pope headed as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from 1977 to 1982.

Pope Benedict, who has denied allegations of mishandling four cases of clerical sexual abuse put forth by the report, emphasized in a letter Feb. 8 his feelings of great shame and sorrow for the abuse of minors and made a request for forgiveness to all victims of sexual abuse.

Archbishop Gänswein was asked to respond to criticisms by some victims' advocates and media in Germany that Pope Benedict's apology was insufficient.

"Whoever reads the letter in a sincere way, the way in which the letter was written, cannot agree with these criticisms or these accusations. He asks all victims of abuse for forgiveness," he said.

The archbishop, who started working with the former pope in 1996 at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and became his personal secretary in 2003, was asked how he saw the pope react to the growing abuse scandals during his tenure.

A clear indication of how the pope felt, the archbishop said, can be seen in the meditations he wrote as cardinal for the Good Friday Way of the Cross in 2005, writing forcefully about how much "filth there is in the church," even among those in the priesthood.

There are measures, documents and evidence that show how much he, first as Cardinal Ratzinger, then as Pope Benedict, did "in order to make progress in a cleanup from within in a suitable way," Archbishop Gänswein said.

Asked about the allegations of mishandling of abuse cases when the pope was archbishop of Munich, the aide said no evidence of his guilt was presented in the report.

"The accused does not have to prove his innocence," he said. "If they have proof, then they must say, 'This is the proof you are guilty.'"

VATICAN CITY — Although dogged for years by rumors of sexual impropriety, Theodore E. McCarrick was able to rise up the Catholic hierarchical structure based on personal contacts, protestations of his innocence and a lack of Church officials reporting and investigating accusations, according to the Vatican summary of its report on the matter.

In choosing then-Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick of Newark in 2000 to be archbishop of Washington and later a cardinal, St. John Paul II likely overlooked rumors and allegations about McCarrick's sexual misconduct because of a long relationship with him, McCarrick's own strong denial and the pope's experience with communist authorities in Poland making accusations to discredit the Church, the summary said.

But, in fact, rumors of McCarrick's conduct, especially knowledge that he had young adult men and seminarians sleep in the same bed with him when he was bishop of Metuchen, N.J., led the Vatican to decide it would be "imprudent" to promote him when looking for candidates to become archbishop of Chicago in 1997, New York in 1999-2000 and, initially, of Washington in July 2000, the report said.

One hour before the release Nov. 10 of the "Report on the Holy See's Institutional Knowledge and Decision-Making Related to Former Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick," journalists were given the document's 14-page introduction, which described the two-year investigation that led to the report's compilation and gave an "executive summary" of its findings.

In June 2018, the Vatican suspended McCarrick from ministry after an investigation by the Archdiocese of New York found credible a charge that he sexually abused a teenager. McCarrick resigned from the College of Cardinals in July, and in February 2019, after a canonical process found McCarrick guilty of "solicitation in the sacrament of confession and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power," Pope Francis dismissed him from the priesthood.

In August 2018, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, former nuncio to the United States, called on Pope Francis to resign after claiming that he had informed Pope Francis of McCarrick's abuse in 2013 and that top Vatican officials knew of McCarrick's abusive behavior for years.

That claim led Pope Francis to initiate an investigation into how McCarrick was able to continue to rise through Church ranks despite the repeated rumors, anonymous letters, allegations and even settlements with alleged victims.

The report summary said, "No records support Vigano's account" of his meeting with Pope Francis "and evidence as to what he said is sharply disputed."

Until the allegations about child sexual abuse were made to the Archdiocese of New York in 2017, "Francis had heard only that there had been allegations and rumors related to immoral conduct with adults occurring prior to McCarrick's appointment to Washington," it said.

"Believing that the allegations had already been reviewed and rejected by Pope John Paul II, and well aware that McCarrick was active during the papacy of Benedict XVI, Pope Francis did not see the need to alter the approach that had been adopted in prior years," the summary said.

The introduction to the report said it is based on documents found at the Vatican and the apostolic nunciature in the United States as well as interviews — "ranging in length from one to 30 hours" — with more than 90 witnesses in the United States, Italy and elsewhere. They included survivors, cardinals, bishops and former seminarians.

In a statement issued with the report, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, said the contributions of survivors were "fundamental." The introduction of the report cautions survivors of abuse that certain sections "could prove traumatizing" and warns that some portions of the document are "inappropriate for minors."

VATICAN CITY — Since Pope Francis convened a historic summit at the Vatican one year ago to address clergy sex abuse and accountability, much has been done, but advocates say more is needed.

Dozens of experts, abuse survivors and their advocates came to Rome the same week as the summit’s anniversary to emphatically reiterate the need to never let ignorance, complacency or denial ever take hold again and to make the Church safe for everyone.

The advocacy groups held media events and worked on talking to as many Vatican officials and religious leaders as possible to highlight still unaddressed concerns such as abuse by women religious, transparency in past and current Vatican investigations of known abusers and the likelihood of ever seeing “zero tolerance” for known predators.

However, significant measures have been rolled out piecemeal over the year. Here is a rundown of the most major changes:

• Pope Francis approved a sweeping new law and set of safeguarding guidelines for Vatican City State and the Roman Curia in March, just a month after the Feb. 21-24 Vatican summit.

The new law “On the Protection of Minors and Vulnerable Persons,” beefed up existing criminal laws for Vatican City State and mandates quick reporting of suspected or known abuse to the Vatican tribunal. It covers all forms of physical and emotional abuse — not just sexual violence through coercion — as well as serious forms of mistreatment, neglect, abandonment and exploitation against minors, who are below the age of 18, and vulnerable adults. Any Vatican employee around the world can be tried by the Vatican court for violations.

This new law on child protection was meant to better comply with the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and its optional protocol, since legal amendments made in 2013 brought Vatican law into detailed compliance with several international treaties the Vatican had signed over the past decades.

• In May, Pope Francis issued “Vos estis lux mundi” (“You are the light of the world”) for the universal Church.

The papal mandate revised and clarified norms and procedures for holding bishops and religious superiors accountable in protecting minors as well as in protecting members of religious orders and seminarians from abuse. It requires all priests and religious to report suspected abuse or cover-ups and encourages any layperson to report through a now-mandated reporting “system” or office that must be set up in each diocese by June of this year.

It insists leaders will be held accountable not only with suspected cases of committing abuse themselves, but also accusations of interfering with, covering up or failing to address abuse accusations of which they were aware.

No matter what local or national cultures or laws say, for the universal Church, the document defined a minor as anyone under the age of 18 and included those who can be defined “a vulnerable person” and what is considered to be child pornography. It also established that bishops and religious superiors are accountable not just for protecting minors but also for protecting seminarians, novices and members of religious orders from violence and sexual abuse stemming from an abuse of power.

The document was a follow-up to Pope Francis’ 2016 document, “As a Loving Mother,” and together, the two documents are meant to correct what had been a lack of or unclear procedures for investigating the way a bishop, and now religious superiors, comply with already established norms against abuse and clearly expressing the consequences of noncompliance or cover-ups.

• The latest, most recent change was in December, when Pope Francis waived the obligation of secrecy for those who report having been sexually abused by a priest and for those who testify in a Church trial or process having to do with clerical sexual abuse. Abuse survivors had long called for lifting the obligation, saying it had been abused or used in ways to cover up misconduct and crimes.

Now, not only are victims and witnesses free to discuss their case, the amended law specifies that the still-in-effect obligation of Vatican officials to maintain confidentiality shall not prevent complying with civil laws, including mandatory reporting and following legal court orders.

• The same day he released the instruction in December, the pope issued a number of amendments to “Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela” (“Safeguarding the Sanctity of the Sacraments”) from 2001.

Pope Francis changed the age defining a child from 14 to under 18 regarding what qualifies as “child pornography,” and the procedural norms for how the tribunal of the doctrinal congregation is to be composed and conducted was spelled out.

He removed the requirement that the legal representative of the accused be a priest, allowing the role of “advocate or procurator” to be any qualified “member of the faithful” who has a doctorate in canon law and is approved by the presiding judge.

The pope has other big decisions and changes still coming, Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, told Vatican News Feb. 20.

“This journey is not over. Soon there will be other steps, seen and prepared over this year,” he said.

The step-by-step process, he said, is meant to help the Church develop “a culture of attention and prevention” that never ends.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Vatican City State will have its own reporting system in place before the end of the year for flagging suspected cases of the abuse of minors and vulnerable people and instances of cover-up or negligence in handling such cases, the Vatican said.

In the meantime, U.S. Msgr. Robert Oliver was appointed to be the contact person for people with information or concerns about potential cases of abuse and cover-up within the Vicariate of Vatican City State, the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, reported July 30.

Msgr. Oliver, a canon lawyer who worked as the promoter of justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and in a number of dioceses in the United States, is the secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

He was appointed in June, the newspaper said, to be the contact person for anyone who "may have information or suspicions that a minor or a vulnerable person may be at risk of abuse or may have been subjected to it as part of pastoral activities of the vicariate as well as knowledge of any act of negligence by authorities," it said.

Cardinal Angelo Comastri, papal vicar for Vatican City State, sent a letter to each head of a dicastery as well as "spiritual assistants" of Vatican City State, outlining procedures for reporting, the newspaper said.

"Within the year, the Vicariate of Vatican City will establish a public, permanent and easily accessible system for presenting reports concerning crimes and negligence dealing with the abuse of minors and vulnerable people," it said.

"The system will be gradually incorporated with the measures adopted by other relevant bodies, in particular those spelled out" in the safeguarding guidelines for the Vicariate of Vatican City, it added.

The five-page set of guidelines, which were approved by Pope Francis in March, apply to all areas and all clergy, chaplains, assistants, employees or volunteers of the vicariate. While few minors reside in Vatican City State, there are minors in the Sistine Chapel Choir, and there is a pediatric hospital and a minor seminary under Vatican City State jurisdiction. The guidelines also apply to all members of consecrated life or lay associations who reside in Vatican City State.

The guidelines were issued the same day the pope mandated new norms and legal, criminal and safeguarding procedures for Vatican City State and the Roman Curia with an apostolic letter given "motu proprio" (on his own initiative). The law and procedures went into effect June 1.

The law covers all forms of physical and emotional abuse — not just sexual violence through coercion — as well as serious forms of mistreatment, neglect, abandonment and exploitation against minors, who are younger than 18, and vulnerable adults.

It covers acts, behaviors or conditions: that occur on Vatican City State territory, including the Pontifical Villa of Castel Gandolfo; that harm any minor who is a citizen or resident; or that are allegedly perpetrated by any "public official," which includes all employees of Vatican City State and the Holy See, members of the Roman Curia and related institutions as well as Vatican diplomats and personnel.

Any individual, even someone completely unconnected with the Vatican or Holy See, can also make a report if they are aware of behavior harmful to a minor.

The crimes against minors are automatically prosecutable and the Vatican's prosecutor's office can proceed automatically; the statute of limitations on the crimes is 20 years after the alleged victim turns 18.

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has revised and clarified norms and procedures for holding bishops and religious superiors accountable in protecting minors as well as in protecting members of religious orders and seminarians from abuse.

The new juridical instrument is meant to help bishops and religious leaders around the world clearly understand their duties and Church law, underlining how they are ultimately responsible for proper governance and protecting those entrusted to their care. For this reason, the new document establishes a clearer set of universal procedures for reporting suspected abuse, carrying out initial investigations and protecting victims and whistleblowers.

The new document, given “motu proprio,” on the pope’s own initiative, was titled “Vos estis lux mundi” (“You are the light of the world”), based on a verse from the Gospel of St. Matthew (5:14).

“The crimes of sexual abuse offend Our Lord, cause physical, psychological and spiritual damage to the victims and harm the community of the faithful,” the pope said in the document, released by the Vatican May 9. The norms go into effect June 1.

In order to stop all forms of abuse from ever happening again, not only is “a continuous and profound conversion of hearts” necessary, there must be “concrete and effective actions that involve everyone in the Church,” he wrote.

Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, said the new norms ascribe a new role to heads of dioceses by making them responsible for alerting the proper Vatican authorities of all forms of suspected abuse, including the possession, distribution or creation of pornography involving a minor.

He told Vatican News May 9 that the norms respond to Pope Francis’ continued insistence for concrete and effective measures to ensure bishops and religious superiors have a very clear understanding of what their obligations are and what they should and should not do when it comes to safeguarding.

It also requires all priests and religious to report suspected abuse or cover-ups and encourages any lay person to report through a now-mandated reporting “system” or office in each diocese.

How the office or “system” works will be up to each diocese, but “the idea is that anyone who has suffered abuse can have recourse to the local Church, while being assured they will be well received, protected from retaliation, and that their reports will be treated with the utmost seriousness,” Andrea Tornielli, editorial director of the Dicastery for Communication, told Vatican News.

The new norms now stipulate:

• Procedures for the investigation of bishops, cardinals, patriarchs, religious superiors and all those who lead — even temporarily — a diocese or particular Church, including personal prelatures and personal ordinariates.

• Leaders will be held accountable not only with suspected cases of committing abuse themselves, but also accusations of having interfered with, covered up or failed to address abuse accusations they were aware of.   — When the accused individual is a bishop, the metropolitan will receive a mandate from the Holy See to investigate or delegate a person in charge of the preliminary investigation. A status report must be sent to the Holy See every 30 days, and the investigation completed with 90 days with some exceptions. Vatican offices are also held to specific timeframes and prompt action.

• By June 2020, every diocese in the world must create an office or “public, stable and easily accessible systems” for reporting suspected abuse against a minor or vulnerable person, failure of compliance of abuse guidelines by bishops or superiors and cases of interference or cover-ups in either a civil or canonical investigation of suspected abuse.

• All priests and religious that become aware of abuse or its cover-up must alert their bishop or religious superior promptly.

• A minor is anyone under the age of 18 and a vulnerable person is “any person in a state of infirmity, physical or mental deficiency or deprivation of personal liberty which, in fact, even occasionally, limits their ability to understand or to want to otherwise resist the offense.”

• The definition of child pornography as any representation of a minor, regardless of the media used, “involved in explicit sexual activities, whether real or simulated, and any representation of sexual organs of minors for primarily sexual purposes.”

• Bishops and religious superiors will be accountable not just for protecting minors against abuse but also for protecting seminarians, novices and members of religious orders from violence and sexual abuse stemming from an abuse of power. The norms apply to reports of “delicts against the sixth commandment” regarding clerics or members of religious orders and “forcing someone, by violence or threat or through abuse of authority, to perform or submit to sexual acts.”

• Those who report abuse cannot be subjected to pressure, retaliation and discrimination or told to keep silent. The seal of confession, however, remains inviolable and is not affected by the new norms.

• Procedures for carrying out the preliminary investigation include the bishop immediately requesting from the Vatican that he or a delegate be assigned to begin the preliminary investigation. If he considers an accusation is unfounded, the papal nuncio is informed. The Vatican will have 30 days to respond to the request and the bishop sends a status report to the Vatican every 30 days.

• When the investigation is complete, the bishop sends the results to the proper Vatican office, which then follows existing canon law.

• The continued obligation to respect civil laws regarding mandatory reporting.

• Those who reported suspected abuse or cover-up will be told of the outcome of the investigation if they request to be informed.

• A fund can be set up by bishops’ conferences, synods and Church provinces to cover the costs of investigations.

The document is a follow-up to Pope Francis’ 2016 document, “As a Loving Mother,” on transparency and accountability of bishops and religious superiors.

VATICAN CITY — The time has come for an “all-out battle” against the abuse of minors, erasing this abominable crime from the face of the earth, Pope Francis said, closing a global four-day summit on child protection in the Catholic Church.

For quite some time, the world has been aware of the “serious scandal” the abuse of minors by clergy has brought to the Church and public opinion, both because of the dramatic suffering it has caused victims and because of the “unjustifiable negligence” and “cover-up” by leaders in the Church, he told people gathered in St. Peter’s Square.

Since the problem is present on every continent, the pope said he called leaders of the world’s bishops and religious superiors to Rome because “I wanted us to face it together in a co-responsible and collegial way,” he said after praying the Angelus Feb. 24.

“We listened to the voice of victims, we prayed and asked for forgiveness from God and the people hurt, we took stock of our responsibility, and our duty to bring justice through truth and to radically reject every form” of sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience, he said.

“We want every activity and every place in the Church to be completely safe for minors,” he said, which means taking every possible measure so that such crimes never happen again.  

It will also entail working with great dedication together with people of good will everywhere in order to fight this “very grave scourge of violence” that affects hundreds of millions of minors around the world.

The pope’s noonday summary of what he called a “very important” meeting came after he delivered his closing remarks at the end of Mass Feb. 24.

Surrounded by the ornate frescoed walls and ceiling of the Sala Regia, the pope told some 190 cardinals, bishops and religious superiors from around the world, “the time has come, then, to work together to eradicate this evil from the body of our humanity by adopting every necessary measure already in force on the international level and ecclesial levels.”

However, despite the importance of knowing the sociological and psychological explanations behind this criminal act of abuse, he said, the Church must recognize this is a spiritual battle against the “brazen, aggressive, destructive” power of Satan.

“I see the hand of evil that does not spare even the innocence of the little ones. And this leads me to think of the example of Herod who, driven by fear of losing his power, ordered the slaughter of all the children of Bethlehem,” the pope said.

Just as the pagans once sacrificed children on their altars, such cruelty continues today with an “idolatrous sacrifice of children to the god of power, money, pride and arrogance,” he said.

While the majority of abused minors are victims of a person they know, most often a family member, he said, it is “all the more grave and scandalous” when a member of the Church, particularly a priest, is the perpetrator “for it is utterly incompatible” with the Church’s moral authority and ethical credibility.

“Consecrated persons, chosen by God to guide souls to salvation, let themselves be dominated by their human frailty or sickness and thus become tools of Satan,” he said.

There is no excuse for abusing children, who are an image of Jesus, he said, which is why it has become increasingly obvious “the gravest cases of abuse” must be disciplined and dealt with “civil and canonical processes.”

VATICAN CITY — The clerical sexual abuse crisis has caused “serious scandal” in the Catholic Church and in society “because of the dramatic suffering of the victims, as well as the unjustifiable lack of attention to them” and attempts by Church leaders to cover up the crimes of the guilty, Pope Francis said.

Speaking to the public, including dozens of abuse survivors, after his midday recitation of the Angelus Feb. 24, the pope promised measures to ensure children would be safe in the Church and that the crime of abuse would stop.

The pope’s remarks came just an hour after he concluded the Vatican’s Feb. 21-24 summit on child protection and the clerical abuse scandal.

In his talk concluding the summit, Pope Francis said the Catholic Church would focus on eight priorities:

• the protection of children

• “impeccable seriousness” in dealing with clerical sexual abuse

• genuine purification and acknowledgment of past failures

• improved training for priests and religious

• strengthening and continually reviewing the guidelines of national bishops’ conferences

• assisting victims of clerical sexual abuse

• working to end the abuse and exploitation of children and young people online

• working with civil authorities to end sex tourism

The summit brought together Pope Francis and 190 Church leaders — presidents of bishops’ conferences, the heads of the Eastern Catholic churches, superiors of men’s and women’s religious orders and Roman Curia officials — for four days of listening to speeches, survivors’ testimonies, discussions in small groups, a penitential liturgy and Mass.

In addition to the handful of survivors who spoke at the summit itself, dozens of survivors from around the world gathered in Rome in solidarity with one another and to speak to reporters and to individual bishops. Twelve representatives of the survivors were invited to meet Feb. 20 with the summit’s organizing committee.

As the bishops met with the pope inside the Vatican’s synod hall, the coalition Ending Clerical Abuse, which brought 40 survivors from 21 countries to Rome, organized vigils and a march to St. Peter’s Square.

The survivors’ groups were, in general, not satisfied with the summit and insisted the time to talk about the reality of abuse was long passed; it was time for action.

The summit, though, seemed designed more to ensure that every bishops’ conference around the world recognized the gravity of the problem, even if in their country very few cases of clerical sexual abuse had been reported.

Addressing the summit Feb. 23, Nigerian Sister Veronica Openibo, congregational leader of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, called out bishops, particularly in Asia and Africa, who dismiss the abuse crisis as a Western problem. She cited several personal experiences she confronted while counseling men and women who were abused.

Church leaders cannot think they can “keep silent until the storm has passed,” Sister Openibo told them. “This storm will not pass by.”

Preaching at the closing Mass, Australian Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane warned his fellow bishops that they would be called to account for what they did and what they failed to do to stop the abuse and assist the victims.

For too long, he said, bishops and Church leaders tried to protect the Church’s reputation and not the Church’s children.

“We have shown too little mercy, and therefore we will receive the same, because the measure we give will be the measure we receive in return,” he said. “We will not go unpunished.”

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila, Philippines, gave the first formal talk of the gathering Feb. 21, providing a theological reflection on the meaning of Christ’s wounds and on the obligation of the world’s bishops to recognize how they have inflicted wounds on Christ’s beloved children.

Touching those wounds and begging for forgiveness is an essential part of a bishop’s mission, he said.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and longtime investigator of clerical abuse cases, outlined for participants the necessary, mandatory steps they must take when an allegation is made.

He insisted on making the victims a priority, but also used his talk to suggest that the “stewardship of prevention” includes helping the pope choose candidates for bishop appointments.

“Many demand that the process be more open to the input of laypeople in the community,” Archbishop Scicluna said, a request later echoed by Sister Openibo.

When a priest or bishop or layperson is asked to comment on a potential candidate, the archbishop said, “it is a grave sin against the integrity of the episcopal ministry to hide or underestimate facts that may indicate deficits in the lifestyle or spiritual fatherhood” of the candidate.

Later, summit participants debated particular measures, such as a mandatory requirement that abuse allegations be turned over to police. Archbishop Scicluna insisted involving local police and other authorities was important, especially because while bishops exercise spiritual authority over their priests, they have no actual “coercive measures — and we don’t have any nostalgia for the coercive measures of the Inquisition” — to force priests to cooperate with investigations and obey when punishment has been imposed.

Throughout the summit, bishops and other speakers tried to identify attitudes and issues that have contributed to the Catholic Church’s sex abuse crisis; repeatedly they pointed to “clericalism,” and especially an attitude that allows priests and bishops to think that they were somehow special and above the law and common human decency.

To understand the full depth of the crisis, Colombian Cardinal Ruben Salazar Gomez of Bogota said Feb. 21, bishops must stop looking at outsiders as the cause of the damage within the Church and recognize that “the first enemies are within us, among us bishops and priests and consecrated persons who have not lived up to our vocation.”

Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai, India, told the gathering Feb. 22 that, as members of the College of Bishops, each bishop in every part of the world has a responsibility to root out abuse everywhere and that each bishop has a moral obligation to “point out honestly to our brother bishops or priests when we notice problematic behavior in them.”

Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago, one of the summit organizations, told the gathering he believed the Catholic Church needed a new structure in place to deal with bishops accused of abuse or of negligence in handling abuse claims.

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor announced Feb. 8 that Kinsale Management Consulting has completed its review of clergy files. This is a follow-up to the diocese’s internal review that was announced Sept. 10.

On Sept. 10 of last year I wrote you about the steps we are taking to address the clergy sexual abuse crisis in Arkansas. I disclosed the names of 12 priests and former priests against whom credible allegations had been received in the last 70 years. I also announced that an independent review of our clergy files would be undertaken by Kinsale Management Consulting. On Oct. 23 I provided an update, stating that since Sept. 10 the diocese had received reports of additional allegations of clergy sexual abuse from the public — most of which were against priests already listed; none of which were against priests who are currently in active ministry in Arkansas; and all of which were regarding events that would have occurred prior to 2002.

Although it is difficult or impossible to investigate, such allegations after a priest has already died, the diocese investigated all the new allegations to the extent possible or referred them over to the appropriate civil authorities or religious orders. And all new allegations were also reviewed by Kinsale, who had access to all files contained in the diocesan archives, all confidential files, and all active working files.

We have also contacted several religious orders whose clergy may have served in our diocese at some point in the past and obtained additional information from some of them. Several orders are currently in the process of conducting their own external review (including Subiaco Abbey), with the goal of publishing their own lists sometime in the future. When they or other dioceses publish or update their own lists, we will update ours as well.

Kinsale’s exhaustive review of over 1,350 files on clergy and religious who have served here has now been completed. They made no dramatic discoveries, but their efforts confirmed that we have a clear understanding of the scope of incidents of clergy sexual abuse committed in the past. The results of Kinsale’s review as well as the diocese’s ongoing file review and investigations were all brought before the Diocesan Review Board — a group of majority lay people who are not employed by the diocese and who meet regularly to advise me on various matters, including the credibility or lack thereof of such allegations against clergy.

Sadly, as a result of this entire process, we must add the name of one additional priest and one religious brother against whom allegations of abusing minors in Arkansas can be considered credible at this time.

There is also a report on how previous bishops handled allegations where is available here and on our diocesan website.

The following names, updated information on those priests previously disclosed, and an exit letter from Kinsale can also be found on our website.

• Additional Diocese of Little Rock priests against whom credible allegations have been substantiated: None
• Additional Diocese of Little Rock priests against whom unsubstantiated though credible allegations of abuse of a minor have been received:

– Walter Rajmund: Died 1990. Served in Arkansas 1956-1990. Two known victims.

• Additional priests of other dioceses or members of religious orders, against whom credible allegations were made within Arkansas as confirmed by other dioceses or religious orders:

– Bill Wright, GHM: Died 2011. Served at Holy Cross Church in Crossett, Arkansas, 1982-1986.

• Additional priests of other dioceses or religious orders who have served in Arkansas, against whom credible allegations outside of Arkansas have been confirmed by other dioceses or religious orders: Information regarding these priests can be found on the Diocese of Little Rock website.

Thomas Benkhe, OCD

Gabriel Hentrich, OCD

Albert Holmes, GHM

Kevin McCarthy

Bede Mitchell, OSB

Patrick J. L. Nicholson

Vance Thorne, SVD

• In addition to the above names, I must address the public allegations involving Ralph Esposito, a diocesan priest in Pittsburgh 1967-1978 and in Arkansas 1978-2002. He appears on a list of 17 priests named in a 2007 group settlement of a lawsuit between 32 people and the Diocese of Pittsburgh, a settlement in which he was not consulted or involved. His case is listed as involving a “John Doe” accuser and based on his time in Pittsburgh, about which we have no further information. Significantly, Fr. Esposito does not appear in the list of 300+ priests named in last year’s Pennsylvania grand jury report, nor does he appear on the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s public list of those credibly accused of child sexual abuse. Although there have been concerns expressed about boundary violations with minors during his time here in Arkansas, at this time none of these seem to rise to the level of child sexual abuse. He retired in 2002, returned to Pennsylvania in 2005 and has not engaged in any priestly ministry since then.

Although to date the diocese has not paid any money to settle legal claims related to the priests included in our Clergy Disclosure List, since 2002 the diocese has spent approximately $205,000 out of the diocesan insurance fund providing counseling and other assistance to persons alleging child sexual abuse by a priest, even including some cases in which the allegations were unverifiable but where the person was nevertheless in obvious need of help. We have tried to be as generous as possible in providing this help, always giving the person the benefit of the doubt.

As I said at the end of my previous letters, I once again ask for your prayers for all the victims of sexual abuse from whatever source, but in particular those who have been abused by a priest, deacon or other representative of the Church. I would like to renew my call for any others who have been abused or know someone who has been abused to come forward by first contacting the Arkansas Child Abuse Hotline (800-482-5964). And then please call our diocesan contacts: Deacon Matthew Glover, chancellor for canonical affairs (501-664-0340, ext. 361) or our victims assistance coordinator (501-664-0340, ext. 425). I am deeply concerned to see to it that we offer whatever assistance we can provide.

Let us continue to pray for one another during these most trying times in our Church. But let us pray most especially for the victims and their families — they are the ones who are hurting the most.

After the Pennsylvania grand jury report was released Aug. 14 detailing more than 1,000 cases of sexual abuse of minors by about 300 priests in a span of 70 years within six of the state’s dioceses, it again put a microscope on dioceses throughout the country on what was or was not done to protect minors.

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor, in an effort for transparency, was one of the first bishops to release a disclosure list Sept. 10 naming 12 priests who had credible allegations of abuse. It was the first time 11 names on the list were made public. Bishop Taylor emphasized at the time that releasing the list was “simply the right thing to do.”

Since then, there has been a flood of disclosure lists from dioceses, as well as a religious order, throughout the country.

“I think that is a positive development,” Bishop Taylor told Arkansas Catholic in an email regarding other dioceses releasing their own lists. “People in general have a right to know and in the case of victims, seeing their abuser exposed empowers them and helps as yet unknown victims to find the courage to come forward to receive help dealing with the most painful experience of their entire life.”

Before Bishop Taylor released the diocesan list, only five dioceses or archdioceses (not including Pennsylvania dioceses) had voluntarily released or updated their clergy abuse list. They included the archdioceses in Seattle and Baltimore and dioceses in Gary, Ind., Great Falls-Billings, Mont., and San Diego.

Arkansas Catholic reviewed articles from Catholic News Services and a number of diocesan and archdiocesan websites to summarize disclosures since the Diocese of Little Rock’s Sept. 10 announcement.

Since September, another 29 dioceses or archdioceses in 16 states and the District of Columbia and four provinces of the Jesuits announced or updated their own lists of known priest abusers. As of Jan. 3, 41 dioceses have published or updated their lists with names of accused priests since the Pennsylvania grand jury report.

Expected to be released by Jan. 31 are the lists of 15 dioceses in Texas, according to the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops.

The reporting period for some entities went as far back as 95 years, but most dioceses and archdioceses were reporting abuse that happened in the past 70 years, which was consistent with what was reported in the Pennsylvania grand jury report.

Attorneys general in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Virginia have opened investigations into dioceses and archdioceses. The Archdiocese of Anchorage also appointed an independent commission to review all personnel files of clerics and religious since it was established in 1966, according to an Oct. 25 CNS article.

Bishop Taylor said it is important for dioceses and religious orders to release lists, if possible, before they are forced to by the courts.

“Reluctance to release lists suggests that a diocese is more concerned about institutional concerns than it is about confronting this evil and helping victims, many of whom continue to suffer deep wounds decades after the abuse they suffered,” he said.