Bishop Gregory: Audit shows bishops keeping word on sexual abuse

Published: 2004-01-06

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The newly published report on audits of U.S. diocesan responses to sexual abuse and child protection shows that "we bishops are keeping our word," Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Jan. 6 at a press conference in Washington releasing the report. Bishop Gregory, of Belleville, Ill., noted that it was two years ago that reports of church handling of clergy sexual abuse of minors in the Boston Archdiocese "sparked a crisis that eventually engulfed the whole Catholic Church in the United States." Less than six months later, with their "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People," he said, "we made a promise to protect our children and young people and a pledge to help heal those whose youth had been blighted by the terrible crime of sexual abuse." He described the diocesan audits summarized in the 418-page report as one of the "means to assure" the implementation of the charter. The findings, he added, show "solid progress on the journey toward fulfilling the vision set out in the charter."

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