Today I am giving my blog space to my colleague, Bernard Nojadera, who directs the U.S. bishops' critical office that works with clergy sexual abuse of children.
With 2012, the Catholic Church looks back on a decade of learning about a problem which may be decades or centuries old: the sexual abuse of minors by those who would mentor them.
The crisis in the Church in the United States reached a head in 2002, when newspaper coverage nationwide highlighted the existence of this horrific crime and moral travesty. We now know that others, including some sports organizations and other groups where adults mentor youth, have yet to confront this crisis within their own ranks.
In the United States, the Catholic Church adopted a plan to address the issue, called the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. It has spent billions of dollars on settlements, safe environment education, and background checks to do all it can to prevent the abuse of children in its care. We have come to some understanding of how to address the problem, gaining knowledge that can benefit more than the Catholic Church.
Some of what we've learned:
- The guiding principle when confronting child sexual abuse is to remember that it is most of all about the person who was abused. It is not about the offender, the institution or anyone's reputation. It is about helping a child.
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Bernard Nojadera is a deacon and head of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat for the Protection of Children and Young People
