IMAGE: CNS photo/Bob Roller
By
WASHINGTON
(CNS) — The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said he was
“eager for an audience” with Pope Francis to gain his support for the
bishops’ plan to respond to the clergy sexual abuse crisis.
In an Aug.
27 statement, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston also said that the
questions raised by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, former nuncio to the United
States, in a letter published by two Catholic media outlets “deserve answers
that are conclusive and based on evidence.”
“Without
those answers, innocent men may be tainted by false accusations and the guilty
may be left to repeat the sins of the past,” the cardinal said.
In
his 11-page letter, published Aug. 26, Archbishop
Vigano accused church officials, including Pope Francis, of failing to act on
accusations of abuse of conscience and power by now-Archbishop Theodore E.
McCarrick. Archbishop Vigano claimed he told Pope Francis about Cardinal
McCarrick in 2013.
Archbishop Vigano, who served as nuncio to the United
States from 2011 to 2016, wrote that he was compelled to write his knowledge of
Archbishop McCarrick’s misdeeds because “corruption has reached the very
top of the church’s hierarchy.”
In his
statement, Cardinal DiNardo reiterated an Aug. 16 call for an apostolic
visitation, working with a national lay commission granted independent
authority, to investigate the “many questions surround Archbishop
McCarrick.”
He also said
he convened members of the USCCB Executive Committee Aug. 26 and that they “reaffirmed
the call for a prompt and thorough examination into how the grave moral
failings of a brother bishop could have been tolerated for so long and proven
no impediment to his advancement.”
The plan earlier
outlined by Cardinal DiNardo also called for detailed proposals to make
reporting of abuse and misconduct by bishops easier and improve procedures for
resolving complaints against bishops.
Cardinal
DiNardo again apologized to abuse survivors and their families. “You are
no longer alone,” he said.
The
statement explained how since 2002, professionally trained staff have worked
with the U.S. church to support survivors and prevent future abuse. He pointed
to the steps the church has put in place in response to abuse including the zero-tolerance
policy regarding clergy abuse: safe environment training in diocesan offices, parishes
and schools, background checks for church workers and volunteers working around
children, victim assistance coordinators, prompt reporting to civil authorities
and diocesan lay review boards.
“In
other ways, we have failed you. This is especially true for adults being sexually
harassed by those in positions of power, and for any abuse or harassment
perpetuated by a bishop,” Cardinal DiNardo said.
“We
will do better. The more she is buffeted by storms, the more I am reminded that
the church’s firm foundation is Jesus Christ. The failures of men cannot diminish
the light of the Gospel.”
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