The narrative that there is an ongoing widespread and unaddressed rape culture in the Catholic Church in the United States is false. This is not today’s Catholic Church.
In 2002, Catholic bishops passed the Dallas Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in the wake of revelations by The Boston Globe about sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests.
This document, implemented nationwide and constantly updated, prescribes detailed policies for facilitating and investigating allegations:
• Suspending accused priests and removing them from all ministry if accusations prove credible.
• Prompt reporting of allegations to law enforcement.
• Establishing and empowering lay review boards with professional expertise to guide bishops.
• Offering outreach and assistance to victims.
• Screening seminarians.
• Instituting extensive preventive measures, including rigorous background checks for all church workers and volunteers dealing with children and adolescents (including this then-85-year choir member and lector).
• Education of parents.
• Opening up all such programs to regular auditing by independent agencies.
Some dioceses have combed their files or opened them up to district attorneys to make sure no abusing priests are still in ministry.
Since 2002, no priest who has been credibly accused of sexually abusing a minor – no matter how far in the past and regardless of whether the offender is now considered to have been successfully treated – can remain in ministry.
The bulk of sexual abuse by priests occurred between 1965 and 1985 by priests who were born in the 1920s or 1930s and ordained in the 1950s and 1960s. Almost all are dead, no longer in ministry or in jail.
Since 2002, there have been no substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of a minor by a priest in the Diocese of Portland, and only two in the seven Pennsylvania dioceses.
Walter J. Eno
Scarborough
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