Just over a year ago, at the height of the clergy sexual abuse scandal, the U.S. bishops adopted their historic and far-reaching Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

The charter formed a policy setting up new national structures and requiring better diocesan structures to reach out to victims and assist them, end secrecy, report and remove abusers, and protect all children from future abuse.

In June, teams of independent auditors began formal assessments on how well each of the 195 U.S. dioceses is complying with the provisions of the charter.

The Diocese of Sacramento, one of the first in the country to be reviewed, received its team of auditors from the Boston-based Gavin Group June 30-July 3. Diocesan officials preparing for the audit said they were looking forward to the process and the chance to show how programs implemented in the past year and earlier comply with the provisions of the charter.

“We’re all committed to solving this problem of sexual abuse in the church because we have to do it, we’ve said we would do it, and above all, it’s the right thing to do,” said Father David Deibel, Vicar for Canonical Affairs and the official responsible for implementing the standards of the charter in the diocese.

“I would say we’ve always been careful, but now we are being more obviously and publicly careful, which is the spirit of the charter, so people will feel free to question us and to call us to accountability,” he said.

Nine of the charter’s 17 articles address actions which dioceses are required to take to promote healing and reconciliation with victims/survivors of sexual abuse, to guarantee an effective response to allegations, and to protect children from any abuse in the future.

Several measures were implemented by the diocese before and after the charter’s passage to fulfill Article 1 of the charter, which requires outreach to victims/survivors and their families, Father Deibel said.

Among them are a toll-free 800 number for victims to report incidents of sexual abuse, a pastoral care coordinator to assist victims, counseling offered to victims by licensed therapists, and support groups for sexual abuse victims which will begin in the fall.

Nancy Milton, who has served as pastoral care coordinator since April 2002, responds to victims who contact the diocese, offers to set up pastoral care or therapy, and assists people who are making reports of sexual misconduct or who want to make formal complaints.

“I work with victims to identify their needs as far as pastoral care, if they want therapy, or spiritual counseling or direction. I follow through with victims to make sure they are getting the care they need,” she said.

Pastoral care offered to complainants, according to the diocese’s sexual misconduct policy, may include psychiatric care, psychological counseling, spiritual care or other mental health care in addition to pastoral counseling. Over the past 18 months, Milton has developed a list of licensed therapists to which victims are referred for care.

“It’s very individualized,” she said. “Some people have taken us up on the offer of pastoral care, some have not. Even if a person decides to bring a civil lawsuit, we still continue to offer pastoral care.”

Greater pastoral outreach

Milton also oversees a 15-member committee set up in May 2002 which is exploring responses and making recommendations to Bishop William K. Weigand on how to achieve greater pastoral outreach and assistance.

The Diocesan Committee for Outreach to Victims of Clergy Sexual Abuse includes lay Catholics, men and women religious, therapists, diocesan staff and abuse survivors. Milton said the group helps to advise on therapy provided to victims and the support groups, which will be facilitated by licensed therapists.

The liturgy subcommittee of the group planned a day of prayer and healing in November where members of parishes prayed for compassion, reconciliation and healing for victims of sexual abuse and pastors read a statement of concern from Bishop Weigand. Milton said the committee also plans a reconciliation and healing service for victim/survivors and their families in a “neutral setting” by the end of the year.

“I believe we’re doing as much as we can to reach out to victims, to listen and offer the care we can,” she said. “We’re walking with victims through the journey and seeing how we can help them heal. We did a lot of that in the past, and we’ve continued to do that since the charter last year.”

Each victim’s recovery is different, Milton said. “Our goal is to try and bring them through the healing process to become a survivor, so that they might be whole again.”

Father Deibel admitted that some victims feel the church is not doing enough to implement programs or resolve complaints.

“Often we’re not able to resolve cases as soon as people would like, and that creates frustration — there’s no question about that,” he said.

“People are freer today than they were several years ago to make a complaint, and we have the process in place for them to do that freely, safely and respectfully,” he noted. “Once they’ve made the complaint, then we have an obligation to them, the priest accused, and the church as a whole to investigate.

“That’s where it can bog down, because some people want to make a complaint and then not want to have any further participation. That’s makes it very difficult to resolve. Or conversely, the person accused simply says ‘I didn’t do it and I’m not going to talk about it’ — which is their right in our system, both canonically and civilly, and that makes it difficult to resolve. One of the ways we try to address this is to tell people up front when they make a complaint exactly what the process is and what they can expect.”

Father Deibel and Milton said the majority of calls to the 800 line over the past year involve reports of allegations about incidents occurring 20, 30 or 40 years ago. Father Deibel said diocesan officials are continuing to look for more ways to communicate with the public about how victims can come forward.

“I’m not saying there’s no abuse going on now — I frankly don’t know and I pray that there isn’t,” he said. “But we’re not hearing about things that happened yesterday. I would hope that the level of awareness we’ve tried to bring to our clergy and our people and what we’ve implemented would be a real safety barrier that would prevent anything that might happen.”

Milton, Father Deibel, and other diocesan officials joined with local representatives of Child Protective Services and law enforcement officials last fall to present 12 regional training workshops on child abuse prevention and reporting and the diocese’s sexual misconduct policy as one of several initiatives to comply with Article 12 of the U.S. bishops’ charter.

That article says dioceses will establish “safe environment” programs. Dioceses will cooperate with parents, civil authorities, educators and community organizations to provide education and training for children, youth, parents, ministers, educators and others about ways to make and maintain a safe environment for children.

In addition, dioceses will make clear to clergy and all members of the community the standards of conduct for clergy and other persons in positions of trust with regard to sexual abuse.

Leaders attended workshops

About 1,000 leaders attended the workshops, including all priests, deacons, school principals, directors/coordinators of religious education, youth ministers, Spanish coordinators and heads of religious congregations. Parish and school leaders were then required to return to their sites and train all employees and volunteers in the prevention, recognition and reporting of child abuse and sexual misconduct.

Another piece of the safe environment program to protect children is being put in place in the coming months and will involve training parents and children on personal safety issues, according to Milton.

Bishop Weigand has approved two programs for the diocese: KidWISE, by the KidWISE Institute, for pre-school through eighth grade; and the Youth Protection Venturing Program of the Boy Scouts of America, for junior high through high school youth.

Pastors are currently identifying one or more persons from their parish to be trained for the KidWISE program during workshops to be held in three regions of the diocese in October and November, Milton said.

To comply with Article 13 of the charter, Father Deibel said the diocese has completed fingerprinting for all priests, deacons, Catholic school teachers, and lay church workers who have regular contact with minors. Screening of seminarians has also been enhanced to include fingerprinting and criminal background checks and a second round of psychological testing before ordination.

Compliance with Article 2 of the charter, which requires dioceses to have a review board that functions as a confidential consultative body to the bishop, has been in place since last September, when Bishop Weigand appointed a 12-member Independent Review Board.

The board, chaired by Robert K. Puglia, former presiding justice of California’s Third District Court of Appeal, includes two former judges, a child psychiatrist, a physician, a law professor/family law attorney, a child welfare attorney, a former board chair of Catholic Charities, a registered nurse, a nun, a priest and a permanent deacon.

The board, which meets monthly, reviews all accusations of sexual misconduct with minors made against clergy and other church personnel and advises the bishop concerning the investigation and recommendations for administrative action proposed by diocesan legal and personnel authorities.

The board also evaluates the credibility of complaints, the fitness for ministry of accused persons, and takes any additional steps members feel are necessary to reach a final conclusion in cases.

Father Deibel, who is staff liaison to the board, said it reviews matters both retrospectively and prospectively and gives advice on all aspects of responses required in connection with sexual abuse cases.

In an interview, Puglia said board members “take everyone’s rights very seriously” in cases they are reviewing.

“We are not a hanging tribunal, and neither are we a tribunal that simply sweeps things under the rug,” he said. “In any case under consideration, there are at least two parties intimately concerned with the outcome, and they are both entitled to the benefit of the most thoughtful consideration we can give.”

Board members are “conscientious and very mindful of their responsibility to both the accuser and to the accused,” he added. “Those responsibilities weigh heavy on all of us. Given that burden, we try to get it right. Our reactions are not knee-jerk, nor should they be, because we very carefully approach this problem of sexual abuse.”

The board has not had to review any new case of sexual abuse reported to the diocese since it was established, Father Deibel said. “We have put active cases only before the board, but some of those cases deal with inappropriate behavior alleged to have occurred as long as 30 years ago,” he said.

There are no canonical trials pending for the few diocesan priests who are on administrative leave due to abuse allegations, Father Deibel told The Herald.

The revised U.S. procedure for dealing with priests accused of sexual abuse against minors took effect March 1, paving the way for any canonical trials to begin. Canonical trials do not take the place of civil trials, bur rather focus solely on the accused priests’ status in the church. Under the revised procedure, a bishop must report what he believes to be credible allegations of sexual abuse by priests to the Vatican’s Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.

“Even though a canonical trial is possible, we are trying to resolve these matters in compliance with the bishops’ charter and the essential norms without canonical trials,” Father Deibel said. “For the few priests we have on administrative leave, we hope to have their cases resolved within the next six months.”

Diocesan officials have cooperated with all requests from law enforcement in the 20 counties of the diocese about priests who have been accused of sexually abusing minors, Father Deibel said, which is mandated in Article 4 of the charter.

Policy on confidentiality agreements

He said the diocese has also complied with Article 3 of the charter, which says dioceses will no longer enter into confidentiality agreements “except for grave and substantial reasons brought forward by the victim/survivor.” Bishop Weigand announced a new policy for the diocese in April 2002.

The policy is that future settlements by the diocese will only be confidential at the request of a victim. If insurance carriers require that the amount of the settlement be kept confidential, the fact that a settlement took place will not be confidential.

At that time Bishop Weigand disclosed that the diocese had paid out $1.3 million over the past 30 years to settle claims of child abuse against its priests and an additional $450,000 for claims by people who were adults when the alleged abuse took place. Most of the money was paid by insurance, he said.

Father Deibel said he hopes that the audit of the nation’s dioceses, which will lead to an annual public report by the U.S. bishops’ Office for Child and Youth Protection on the progress made in implementing the standards in the charter, will help put the church on the road to restoring its credibility amid lingering public skepticism.

“I don’t know how to assess credibility. I’m sure that I’m embarrassed as a priest when a brother priest is charged or accused, and getting to the issue of whether he is guilty or not can be an embarrassing thing,” he said.

“My experience with people in the pews is that they still love their priests and their church, but they are pained by the notoriety and the pain that other people have suffered,” Father Deibel added.

“I suppose that means there’s a loss of credibility, but I also think within that there’s an opportunity, and that’s what this effort is all about — an opportunity to reach out to our people. Whether we’re effective or not, we’ll have to have this conversation next year or the year after.”

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