Review board head says some bishops rethinking oversight policy

Published: 2004-04-30

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. (CNS) -- Some bishops are having second thoughts about independent oversight of their policies on child sex abuse, said Justice Anne Burke, interim chairwoman of the lay National Review Board appointed to monitor church compliance. But any efforts to return to self-monitoring could backfire in terms of credibility with the laity, she said. "I have news for them. It's not their church. It's our church," she said. "The church belongs to all of us." Burke gave a talk and answered questions April 23 in Bloomington at a luncheon meeting sponsored by the Peoria chapter of Voice of the Faithful, a national lay group that formed in the wake of the sex abuse crisis to ask for changes in the church.

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