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November 11, 2002
Religion specialist Carole Mikita reporting
Utah's Catholic leader is in Washington, D.C. with other American
Catholic bishops, meeting once again on the crisis of priests
accused of sexual abuse.
The bishops are fine-tuning the sex abuse policy they first
approved in Dallas last June. The Vatican has asked them to
balance the accusations of the victims with the rights of
the accused priests.
U.S. Catholic
Bishops are working to make their abuse policy meet with Vatican
approval.
Among them, Bishop George Niederauer, head of the Salt Lake
Diocese. We spoke by phone this afternoon and he says there
has already been misreporting of this issue, speculation that
the revision weakens church leaders' roles in abuse cases.
"Really, the revised version, in a sense, in several
points, kind of strengthens the hand of the bishop,"
says Bishop Niederauer.
The bishops say their idea called 'zero tolerance' remains
intact.
"There is the need to remove permanently from ministry,
at least, and also from the priesthood, anyone who has had
even one act of sexual abuse of a minor in his past,"
says Chicago Cardinal Francis George.
The number of priests accused of abuse now totals 900 nationwide,
according to USA Today.
To assure
the faithful of their concerns, the bishops introduced Kathleen
McChesney, formerly number three in command at the FBI, now
the church's new Director of the Office for Protecting Children.
"Everyone
in the country will be able to see which diocese are complying
and doing the appropriate things and which are not,"
McChesney says.
Utah's diocese has a review board that has already met twice,
asking questions.
"What are the policies of the diocese, where might they
need some tweaking ... In terms of a lot of people talking
about background checks for employees when you hire them and
that sort of thing," Niederauer says.
Bishop Niederauer says Utah's review board will file a report
with Ms. McChesney's office. The bishops in Washington are
expected to vote on the sex abuse policy which includes protections
for both victims and the accused.
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