June 15, 2002
US bishops reject total ban on priests who abuse
From Katty Kay in Dallas
The Times
AMERICAN bishops passed a watered-down plan last night to act against priests accused of molesting children that stopped short of forcing all abusers out of the priesthood.
Any priest found guilty of molesting children will be banned from public ministry and working with parishioners, but not automatically defrocked. Instead, some will have the chance to remain priests "in a controlled environment", such as a monastery. They will not, however, be able to wear a clerical collar.
The policy was part of a final document approved at a conference in Dallas held against the background of a sex scandal that has shaken the Roman Catholic Church in the US. Bishop Wilton Gregory, the conference president, apologised for the "tragically slow" response of the church in "recognising the horror" of sexual abuse, and said: "From this day forward no one known to have sexually abused a child will work in the Catholic Church in the United States." The two-day event failed to respond to widespread demands that bishops who knowingly kept abusive priests in their jobs resign. Bishops said that the Church did not allow clerics to police each other: Catholic bishops can be disciplined only by the Pope. But clergy who fail in future to oust paedophile priests will be liable to sanctions.
The recommendations will be submitted to the Vatican, which is expected to make them obligatory for all US dioceses. One senior bishop said privately that many of the 300 clerics were not happy with the rulings, nor the fact that they would be binding. People who were sexually abused by priests as children countered that the new policy did not go far enough.
US bishops reject total ban on priests who abuse
From Katty Kay in Dallas
The Times
AMERICAN bishops passed a watered-down plan last night to act against priests accused of molesting children that stopped short of forcing all abusers out of the priesthood.
Any priest found guilty of molesting children will be banned from public ministry and working with parishioners, but not automatically defrocked. Instead, some will have the chance to remain priests "in a controlled environment", such as a monastery. They will not, however, be able to wear a clerical collar.
The policy was part of a final document approved at a conference in Dallas held against the background of a sex scandal that has shaken the Roman Catholic Church in the US. Bishop Wilton Gregory, the conference president, apologised for the "tragically slow" response of the church in "recognising the horror" of sexual abuse, and said: "From this day forward no one known to have sexually abused a child will work in the Catholic Church in the United States." The two-day event failed to respond to widespread demands that bishops who knowingly kept abusive priests in their jobs resign. Bishops said that the Church did not allow clerics to police each other: Catholic bishops can be disciplined only by the Pope. But clergy who fail in future to oust paedophile priests will be liable to sanctions.
The recommendations will be submitted to the Vatican, which is expected to make them obligatory for all US dioceses. One senior bishop said privately that many of the 300 clerics were not happy with the rulings, nor the fact that they would be binding. People who were sexually abused by priests as children countered that the new policy did not go far enough.