The German bishops’ meeting with officials of the Roman Curia was not a “showdown,” but it did make clear the Vatican’s strong concerns about Germany’s Synodal Path, especially regarding its support for official ministries for women and for a change in church teaching about homosexuality, said the president of the bishops’ conference.
The letter — read by Father Michael J.K. Fuller, general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — acknowledged the 20-year milestone of the charter and said it was written in response to those who had suffered from abuse and felt they had not been heard.
At the close of their public session, the bishops were reminded of the work accomplished, and that still continues, in efforts to provide a safe environment and healing 20 years after the church adopted the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” in response to the clergy abuse scandal.
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A lawsuit filed Aug. 1 in Massachusetts’ Suffolk County Superior Court accuses then-Father Russell of sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy “approximately 25 times” in 1989-90, during his time as associate pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Lynn, Massachusetts.
In mid-December, the Spanish newspaper El País said it conducted a three-year investigation into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Spain and uncovered 251 unpublished cases of abuse dating back 80 years.
