clergy sexual abuse

According to the diocese, $26 million of the settlement funds will come from insurance coverage and $8 million from cash and property contributions from the diocese and parishes.

In a remarkably frank and detailed speech, the Vatican official heading the department charged with reviewing clergy sexual abuse allegations told an assembly of Catholic journalists that his investigators and the press “share the same goal, which is the protection of minors, and we have the same wish to leave the world a little better than how we found it.”

Since the bishop’s two general assemblies last year, they have been confronted with an overwhelming need to prove to U.S. Catholics that abuse within their own ranks won’t be tolerated.

Representatives of lay organizations expressed caution over the steps taken by U.S. bishops to boost accountability and transparency in dealing with clergy sexual abuse.

ardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, along with Bishop Timothy L. Doherty of Lafayette, Indiana, chairman of the bishops’ Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People, and Bishop Barry C. Knestout of Richmond, Virginia, met with three survivors of clergy sexual abuse late June 12.

The U.S. bishops approved a 10-point statement, “Affirming Our Episcopal Commitments,” June 13 during their general meeting in Baltimore in which the bishops hope to regain “the trust of the people of God.”

During the June 11-13 spring assembly of the U.S. bishops in Baltimore, it was clear the bishops had to respond to the sexual abuse crisis in the church — and on the last day of their gathering they approved a series of procedures to begin this process.

Elizabeth Hayden, a retired district court judge for the State of Minnesota, has been appointed to serve on the National Review Board by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.