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PROTECTING OUR
CHILDREN: NOT JUST FOR THIS MONTH
Dear Pastor and Parishioners,
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. This
seems an appropriate time to stress that
every month should be child
abuse prevention month in the parishes, schools, offices, agencies, and
institutions of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
It
must be acknowledged that in years past the Church’s actions to prevent
crimes against children under our care and the reactions to abuse when it
happened were often inadequate or worse, whatever the reasons. I very much
regret that, and I apologize to anyone who was hurt as a child by a
cleric, employee or volunteer representing the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.
Now, however, we have in place
child-protection policies in our
Decree on Child Protection, and the Archdiocese is committed to
enforcing them. Since 1993, more than 85,000 clergy, employees and
volunteers have been trained in the provisions of the
Decree. Since 2003, more than
68,000 adults have had criminal background checks performed, including
52,400 currently working with children.
At the same time, we want to help bring healing and justice
to any victims of abuse who have not yet surfaced. I urge anyone who was
abused as a child by a representative of the Archdiocese, or knows someone
who was, to report the abuse immediately to the secular legal authorities
and to the Victim Assistance Coordinator of the Archdiocese, Sister Mary
Garke, at (513) 421-3131 or 1 (800) 686-2724. The Archdiocese, too,
reports all accusations of child abuse to secular legal authorities.
In recent weeks, we have been inundated by media reports concerning Pope
Benedict XVI’s actions in cases of child abuse while he was archbishop of
Munich and later as Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the
Faith (CDF). I have no special direct knowledge about these matters, but
the following might be helpful.
The Church welcomes honest
reporting, even when it is critical of the Church and painful. However,
much of the reporting in this instance has been neither fair nor accurate.
(To cite just one example, Pope Benedict has been criticized for actions
of the CDF in the 1980s and 1990s – many years before child abuse cases
were put under the CDF’s jurisdiction in 2001.) For this reason, I urge
you not to form judgments based on secular press accounts alone. For a
more balanced presentation, also read
The Catholic Telegraph. In addition, excellent online resources
are the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ blog at
http://usccbmedia.blogspot.com and a special section of the Vatican
website at
http://www.vatican.va/resources/index_en.htm.
Also, in reading news stories
about how the Church handled abuse allegations against priests some
decades ago, it’s important not to read into them the knowledge that we
have now. As recently as 1984, a supposedly authoritative psychological
textbook said, “Early sexual contacts do not appear to have harmful
effects on many children unless the family, legal authorities, or society
reacts negatively” (McCary and McCary,
Human Sexuality, 3rd
ed., 1984, p. 226). I was not a bishop at that time, but this kind of
advice informed the inadequate decisions many bishops made in those years.
We now know better. The sexual abuse of
children is often devastating. Please pray for victim/survivors as we work
to prevent child abuse this month and every month.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Most Reverend Dennis M. Schnurr
Archbishop of Cincinnati
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