During an April 25 talk at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, Steinfels said the clergy sex abuse crisis that engulfed the U.S. church, and has since spread globally, requires understanding it as context for what is happening in the church, society and culture.
The Catholic Church needs “new legal structures of accountability” for bishops accused of sexual abuse or of negligence in handling abuse allegations, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago told the Vatican summit on safeguarding.
In a step to restore trust in the Catholic Church, dioceses in Texas released their lists of priests against whom credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor have been determined.
Frank Meuers, the southwest Minnesota director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is one of more than a dozen clergy sexual abuse survivors who talks regularly with Tim O’Malley of the Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
The conclusion reached by a Pennsylvania grand jury that six of the state’s Catholic dioceses acted “in virtual lockstep” to cover up abuse allegations and dismiss alleged victims over a 70-year period starting in 1947 is “inaccurate,” “unfair” and “misleading,” said a veteran journalist in an in-depth article for Commonweal magazine.
The U.S. Catholic bishops are taking part in a closed-door retreat Jan. 2-8 at Mundelein Seminary at the University of St. Mary of the Lake near Chicago to prayerfully consider ways to rebuild trust over the clergy sex abuse crisis.
As the U.S. bishops entered the last public part of their 2018 fall general assembly, centered largely on the clergy sex abuse crisis, six clergy sex abuse survivors announced Nov. 14 a lawsuit against the prelates’ main organization, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
A Vatican request that the U.S. bishops postpone voting on several proposals to address abuse was a disappointment but they “quickly took a deep breath” and realized they could still have a productive discussion about the measures, said New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan.
