Bishops' spokesman: U.S. church must show it will protect children

Published: 2006-04-27

ROME (CNS) -- The only real way to move beyond the crisis created by the sexual abuse scandal is to demonstrate continually that the Catholic Church is committed to protecting children, said the spokesman for the U.S. bishops' conference. Msgr. Francis J. Maniscalco, director of communications for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, discussed media coverage of the crisis and the reputation of the church in an April 27 talk at a seminar for church communications officers. The April 27-29 conference was sponsored by the Opus Dei-run University of the Holy Cross in Rome. Msgr. Maniscalco was asked to discuss the church in the United States after the crisis. He said the crisis could be considered a thing of the past if one focused mainly on the "hailstorm of negative publicity" given to the church and the polls that expressed great dissatisfaction with the leadership of the U.S. bishops. "The negative publicity of 2002, when the spotlight was on some heinous conduct by clergy, has not succeeded in shredding the reputation of the priesthood, although without significant action taken at the time, it may have come close to doing so," he said.

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