Contact: Suzanne Morse 617-680-2131, smorse@votf.org

Voice of the Faithful
Denver, Colorado

For Immediate Release
Communications Office
June 14, 2004

Remarks of the National Vice President, Kristine Ward

Re: Recommitment to Dallas Charter, National review Board, and Annual Compliance Audits by the Office and Child and Youth Protection

The bishops of the United States have come to Denver to hold a retreat. The national organization of Voice of the Faithful has come to Denver not to signal retreat to sound both an alarm and an advance.

We are here because we have read the signs that the bishops’ resolve of Dallas 2002 appears to be crumbling. We joined with Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests and requested that the bishops open the deliberations and any voting to the public. The bishops decided to retain the closed retreat of the meeting. Today we reiterate our call for an open meeting on the discussion and vote regarding the compliance audits. We hope closed doors do not equate to closed minds.

In the Preamble to the Dallas Charter, the bishops declared they would deal with the problem, “strongly, consistently, and effectively in the future.” The bishops said they would “in full collaboration with our people, continue to work to restore the bonds of trust that unite us.”

It is with intense distress, that we active and mainstream Catholics see the landscape from February 27 to today pock marked with signposts of retrenchment by the bishops from the principles and spirit of the Dallas Charter.

Sign Number 1
On February 27th with the release of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice Study and the Bennett Report, one of the first disturbing signs was planted when we heard Bishop Wilton Gregory declare in the name of the body of bishops that the clergy sexual abuse scandal was history.

The scandal will never be history as long as any survivor lives. The scandal will never be history as long as there is ache in any heart for one who committed suicide. The scandal will never be history as long as any child is in danger of sexual abuse by clergy. The scandal can never be history if the intent of the Dallas Charter is put off or manipulated.

Sign Number 2
The second sign is the action of the 50 member Administrative Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to defer action on a new round of audits until November.

Bishops of the Administrative Committee knew that putting off discussion on the audits until November would make compliance audits this year impossible and smother the audit process in its infancy.

The Charter’s language is clear. Article 9 calls for an annual public report. A public report cannot be constructed from hopes and desires or wishes. It must be constructed from facts. Facts are obtained through a deliberate and conscientious seeking of the truth.

If the deferring action had been taken by a small group of bishops thinking only of streamlining a retreat agenda that would be cause enough for alarm, but the Administrative Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop is a powerful and representative committee of the bishops. This committee is the gatekeeper of the agendas for the twice yearly meetings of the bishops. It is composed of the officers of the conference, 35 chairs of the standings committees, and representatives of all of the 13 regions of the country. An action of this committee is the most direct speaking of the majority thought of all of the bishops short of a full conference vote.

Sign Number 3
The third signpost is the appointment of Cardinal Law as the archpriest of St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome. While the Vatican may quibble about what parapet of privilege an archpriest occupies, without question -in the minds of in the pew Catholics – and we believe all people of goodwill – this appointment is an arch mistake.

Fourth sign
Now another sign has been posted. Cardinal Avery Dulles has called for a reconsideration of zero tolerance. The keystone of the Dallas Charter is labeled an “extreme response.”

To Voice of the Faithful these do not look like signs that lead to accountability.

They do not look like signposts to a place where the protection of children from crimes is given preeminent value.

Voice of the Faithful raises its voice and calls upon the bishops of the United States to live up to the spirit and intent of the Dallas Charter by:

• taking deliberate steps this week to move forward and fund a multi-year plan for annual compliance audits of every diocese and eparchy in the country including a 2004 audit, and to implement the recommendations of the 2003 audit by the Office of child and Youth Protection;

• to approve and fund a comprehensive causes and context study.

• to support the continuation of an independent National Review Board.

• to appoint members of the National Review Board in the stead, caliber, resolve and dedication of the departing members, Justice Anne Burke, Robert Bennett, Leon Panetta and William Burleigh – and in doing so to retain a totally lay membership on the National Review Board.

• tobegin the review of the Vatican’s recognitio now instead of in November as a pledge and promise of good faith to hold themselves accountable.

• to release all documents relevant to any allegations of sexual abuse by clergy – this is how we get to the truth.

A retreat is not a dodge. A retreat, in our tradition, is a clarifying space, a time of renewal, an opportunity for repentance and a moving on with grace. It is our hope that for our bishops this week of retreat will be a retreat in the classic spiritual sense and not a time of back pedaling on their commitments.

We call upon the bishops not to be men of splendid isolation but to allow the windowed view of the Inverness Hotel to lift them to the mountaintops. Mountaintops of accountability.

Thank you.