Category: Child safety

Read the Introduction to this series here.

In 2016, the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General announced that “a statewide investigating grand jury has determined that hundreds of children were sexually abused over a period of at least 40 years by priests or religious leaders assigned to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-­Johnstown.”

The two-year investigation included a search warrant of the Altoona Bishop’s “secret archive.” That secret archive is the file cabinet under lock and key in the bishop’s office that holds evidence of child sex abuse and cover-up, including letters, reports, photos, records, statements, memos, etc. A bishop is required to keep this file under Canon Law.

The report also determined former Altoona Bishop Joseph Adamec was at the forefront of the cover-up and acted to avoid scandal rather than protect children.

The widespread abuse involved at least 50 priests or religious leaders and endangered thousands of children and allowed proven child predators to abuse additional victims.

The complete grand jury report can be read here.

Reforms Take a Year … Yet Look Oddly Familiar

A year later, in 2017, Bishop Mark L. Bartchak of Altoona-Johnstown Diocese announced “reforms” in conjunction with the Attorney General’s office.

Those reforms included:

1. The creation of an independent, multidisciplinary oversight board;
2. The retention of an outside expert to develop a new, comprehensive child abuse prevention program;
3. A reporting protocol that requires the Diocese to report allegations of child sexual abuse to law enforcement within twelve hours after receipt; and
4. Counseling and support services for victims by qualified and independent mental health professionals chosen by the victims.

Sound familiar? They should.

All of the above items were already a part of the 2002 Dallas Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People and its Norms.

 You can read the Charter here–note where you can find the corresponding reforms:

Item A is Dallas Charter Norm Number 4;

Item B is Dallas Charter Articles 9 and 12;

Item C is Dallas Charter Articles 2 and 4; and

Item D is Dallas Charter Article 1.

 

So … it takes Bishop Mark L. Bartchak a year to copy and paste reforms from 2002?

Hundreds of kids are sexually abused in his diocese and all he can do is rewrite his own booklet?

I guess the next question is: how much has he spent to lobby against legislative reform for victims of child sexual abuse in Pennsylvania? Wait … I don’t want to know.

Next up, Part Two: Crooked dealings in Crookston

The 2002 Dallas Bishops’ Conference was a barn-burner. On the heels of the Spotlight series and scandals in dioceses across the nation, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) got together at their annual June meeting to put together “massive reforms.”

Those reforms became the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People and its accompanying Norms. It was later referred to as the 2002 Dallas Charter.

CrimeCon to BishopCon

Flash forward to 2017. The bishops’ June meeting is currently underway in Indianapolis. As luck or fate would have it, I found myself in the same city, at their very hotel (The JW Marriott Downtown) as the 2017 USCCB June Conference. I am in town attending CrimeCon 2017 (a conference for true crime aficionados) to meet some people interested in my work. (And wouldn’t you know it, The Keepers was the talk of the conference.)

Less than 3 hours after CrimeCon checked out last night, the bishops began checking in.

While the USCCB official schedule says the spring meeting doesn’t begin until June 14, they are well entrenched in the third floor conference center of the hotel, where CrimeCon signs still point people to the USCCB conference rooms (ah, the irony). Meetings are going on as I type.

 

So in honor of the 15th anniversary of the 2002 Dallas Charter, I thought I would take a look at some recent scandals that show us that the problem is far from over and that any glad-handing on behalf of the members of the USCCB this week is just for show.

Nothing has changed, except the window dressing.

The Charter, which the Bishops have been hailing as “watershed” document in child protection, I contend, is a massive failure.

Fifteen years after Dallas, the protesters may be gone, but the disgust remains.

Up next: Part One ~ Altoona-Johnstown