Sunday, April 24, 2011

Rockford Diocese: Policies concerning sexual abuse as published on its website

 

image   Sexual  misconduct by clergy, Church personnel, Church leaders and volunteers is contrary to Christian morals, doctrine and Canon Law. It is never acceptable and Bishop Thomas G. Doran has declared emphatically, that "one case of abuse, is one too many." We acknowledge that sexual misconduct can have devastating consequences and effects on the victims and their families, the Church community, and for the transgressor.
The Rockford Diocese remains committed to preventing abuse and remains vigorous in its efforts of education, prevention and healing.

"To report an instance of sexual abuse by clergy, religious or
laity affiliated with the Diocese of Rockford,
contact local police authorities
and call the Victims Abuse Line: 815-962-9347."


If the abuse involves a minor, also contact the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services at 1-800-25-ABUSE.
Quick links

Communications Policy: Media relations regarding sexual abuse allegations
Sexual Misconduct Norm Booklet - (Order Form)
VIRITUS training schedules (www.ceorockford.org)
USCCB Office of Child & Youth Protection

Frequently asked questions

What was the Diocese of Rockford's procedure in the past when handling sexual abuse or misconduct allegations?
Since 1987, the Diocese has had a policy in place outlining the response to sexual abuse allegations. The policy called for a Diocesan Intervention Team (now Committee) to investigate the allegations; for the alleged victim to be given information regarding how to report the allegations to civil authorities; for the Diocese to make counseling services available to the alleged victim. The policy further stipulated that in instances where allegations against a priest were deemed credible, the priest would be removed from any parish assignment or any other assignment which would permit him access to young people.


What is the procedure since the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' meeting in Dallas in June 2002?
The Diocese of Rockford adheres to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which was approved by the bishops in Dallas and became particular law for the Catholic Church in the United States after Pope John Paul II approved it in October 2002. In keeping with the Charter, when an allegation is received, it is reported to civil authorities and referred to the Diocesan Intervention Committee. Additionally, if the abuse involves a minor, the Department of Children and Family Services is notified. The committee's findings are reported to the Bishop of the Diocese. If the allegations are credible, the accused will be removed from all ministry duties and the allegations will be referred to the Vatican for appropriate investigation and resolution according to Canon Law. Counseling is offered to the alleged victim, as well as to the accused. In no case is a priest who is credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor permitted to function as a priest.
What is the Church doing for the alleged victim?
When the Diocese learns of an allegation, the alleged victim is offered counseling and the Diocese reaches out to the alleged victim to begin the process of pastoral healing. The alleged victim is immediately encouraged to contact the appropriate civil legal authorities, and report the matter to the Department of Children and Family Services, or if the provisions of mandatory reporting apply, diocesan officials contact civil authorities on their own. At the same time, the Diocesan Investigator and the Diocesan Intervention Committee investigate the allegation with the intention of being able to substantiate it. Diocesan investigators make a good faith effort to investigate every allegation even if the state's statutes of limitations on civil and criminal proceedings have expired.


Does anyone from the Diocese meet with alleged victims of sexual abuse?
At the minimum, every alleged victim meets with the Misconduct Officer of the Diocese, who is also the Vicar General/Moderator of the Curia.


What if I am an alleged victim of sexual abuse by a clergyman?
You should report every instance of sexual abuse by anyone to the proper legal authorities immediately, including the Department of Children and Family Services at 1-800-25-ABUSE. If the alleged abuser is anyone associated with the Diocese of Rockford, after you have reported the abuse to legal authorities, call the Diocese's victim abuse line at 815-962-9347.


Why are these allegations becoming public?
Part of the reason is the national publicity that has occurred. After years of silent pain, victims have learned that they were not alone and have begun to come forward. That explains why most of the alleged instances reported have been reported in just the last few years, and why most of the reports concern allegations dating back decades ago.


Why didn't bishops and dioceses know that these clergymen were doing such terrible things?
A priest commits to a life of celibacy and it is presumed that he lives according to that vow. When a man is ordained to the priesthood, he has every intention of adhering to that vow. However, no bishop can know of every priest's actions at all times. The phrase "knew or should have known" is the standard for legal liability, not reality.
Sexual abuse of minors is a societal problem, and it is more widespread than most people knew until quite recently. Most abuse occurs in the home, and most abusers are family members or close, trusted friends of the family. Of course, that does not mean that most adult family members or friends of the family are abusers. In the same way, most clergy are not abusers.

What is the Diocese doing to eliminate the problem of abuse by clergy?
The Diocese is doing many things. It screens and tests candidates for the priesthood and diaconate. It conducts ongoing training and education programs for clergy. It responds promptly and decisively to allegations of sexual abuse. It removes clergymen from ministry when the allegations against them are credible.


Can you guarantee that sexual abuse of minors will never happen again in the Diocese?
No, we cannot guarantee that. No one can. However, we have policies and programs in place designed to prevent abuse by anyone associated with the Diocese. Policies call for us to screen all employees and volunteers who have contact with children. Programs assure that we educate children, parents, clergy, lay employees and volunteers. The VIRTUS program, for example, teaches church personnel, parents and volunteers ways to avoid situations that could lead to sexual abuse, as well as to recognize the warning signs of a perpetrator.


What is being done for the continuing education of clergy?
In addition to requiring that all clergy participate in the VIRTUS program, the Diocese has held a series of mandatory educational programs for clergy for the past several years. The focus of these programs is on prevention and detection.


What is being done in the seminary to assure us that future clergymen will not be abusers?
Our seminarians attend various seminaries, so the particulars of prevention efforts in their seminary experience will vary slightly. However, in all cases candidates for the priesthood in the Diocese undergo fingerprinting and background checks, as well as a battery of psychological tests and one-on-one interviews with several officials of the Diocese who are trained to spot the telltale signs of abusers. Candidates must also have lived a celibate lifestyle before being considered for ordination. Every effort is made to assure that candidates for the priesthood are well-suited in every way to live chaste lives of service and fidelity to Catholic moral teaching.

Click on the following for mother information:  Welcome to the Rockford Diocese

Archdiocese of Milwaukee | Restricted Diocesan Priests

 

Restricted Diocesan Priests

Due to Substantiated Reports of Sexual Abuse of a Minor

In line with the assurances given in the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, these are the names of diocesan priests of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee who have been (or would be if they were still alive) restricted from all priestly ministries, may not celebrate the sacraments publicly, or present themselves as priests in any way. In addition, in accordance with the canonical norms that have been established, the allegations against any living priest are sent to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome.

Raymond A. Adamsky, Fully Restricted from Priestly Ministry

James L. Arimond, Laicized

Ronald J. Bandle, Deceased

James W. Beck, Left Priestly Ministry

Franklyn W. Becker, Laicized

Michael C. Benham, Laicized

Frederick J. Bistricky, Deceased

Daniel A. Budzynski, Laicized

Peter A. Burns, Laicized

S. Joseph Collova, Excommunicated

Andrew P. Doyle, Laicized (Deceased)

William J. Effinger, Deceased

Ronald Engel, Fully Restricted from Priestly Ministry

George A. Etzel, Deceased

William J. Farrell, Deceased

James M. Flynt, Laicized

James M. Godin, Laicized

Edmund H. Haen, Deceased

David J. Hanser, Laicized

Harold A. Herbst, Deceased

George S. Hopf, Deceased

James N. Jablonowski, Fully Restricted from Priestly Ministry

Marvin T. Knighton, Fully Restricted from Priestly Ministry

John T. Knotek, Deceased

Michael J. Krejci, Fully Restricted from Priestly Ministry

Eugene T. Kreuzer, Deceased

Oswald G. Krusing, Deceased

Jerome E. Lanser, Fully Restricted from Priestly Ministry

Eldred B. Lesniewski, Deceased

Daniel J. Massie, Laicized

Lawrence C. Murphy, Deceased

Michael T. Neuberger, Dismissed from clerical state (case in appeal)

Richard W. Nichols, Deceased

George A. Nuedling, Deceased

John A. O’Brien, Laicized

Donald A. Peters, Laicized

Roger W. Schneider, Laicized

Clarence J. Schouten, Deceased

Vincent A. Silvestri, Deceased

Thomas A. Trepanier, Fully Restricted from Priestly Ministry

Jerome A. Wagner, Laicized

John C. Wagner, Fully Restricted from Priestly Ministry

Charles W. Walter, Fully Restricted from Priestly Ministry

Siegfried F. Widera, Deceased


Updated: December 2009

Archdiocese of Milwaukee | Restricted Diocesan Priests

Judge orders Vatican to show files in abuse case

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A federal judge in Oregon ruled Thursday that the Vatican must respond to certain requests for information from a man who says he was molested by a priest [Rev. Andrew Ronan] in the 1960s.

The Vatican will be required to answer written questions within 60 days related to its process of defrocking, its policies regarding sexual abuse and its regulation of priests' conduct, among other requests made by Doe, but Mosman limited all of the discovery to files involving Ronan.

The Vatican has argued it wasn't responsible for Ronan or his multiple transfers. Amid allegations of sexual abuse, court documents say, Ronan was transferred from Ireland to Chicago and then to Portland, where Doe said the abuse occurred.

papers filed last summer, Vatican lawyers said hundreds of documents from Catholic officials showed that U.S. officials of the priest's order "knew of Ronan's propensities and transferred Ronan," but the Holy See "had no prior knowledge regarding Ronan" and no role in moving him.

Click on the following for the entire story:  The Associated Press: Judge orders Vatican to show files in abuse case

Editorials & Opinion | Conservatives, the undisputed champions of untruth | Seattle Times Newspaper

 

Conservatives, the undisputed champions of untruth

by Leonard Pitts Jr. / Syndicated columnist

The capacity for mendacity is not exclusive to any party or ideology, writes Leonard Pitts Jr. But when it comes to the most absolute contempt for the facts and for the necessity of honest debate, it's not even close. Conservatives have no equal.

"If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood. And that's well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does."

— Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., April 8

"(The statistic Kyl used) was not intended to be a factual statement ... "

— Statement from Kyl's office to CNN, later that day

Actually, about 3 percent of Planned Parenthood's services are abortion-related. The overwhelming majority of the organization's work involves cancer screenings, contraception and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. Granted, the 3 percent figure is self-reported and PolitiFact, the nonpartisan, Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking website, suggests it could nudge higher depending on how you crunch the numbers. But it also rules that Kyl "vastly overstated" the organization's involvement in abortions. In other words, he lied.

Conservatives seem to do that an awful lot.

No, the capacity for mendacity is not exclusive to any party or ideology. Yes, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid have all, at one point or another, been at variance with the truth. But when it comes to serial lying, to the biggest, most brazen, most audacious lies, the lies repeated ad nauseam until people mistake them for truth, when it comes to the most absolute contempt for the facts and for the necessity of honest debate, it's not even close. Conservatives have no equal.

Consider: PolitiFact has six categories for judging veracity. A statement is true, mostly true, half true, barely true, false, or "Pants On Fire," after the old schoolyard taunt that begins "Liar! Liar!" PolitiFact uses this designation for statements that are not only untrue but also make some "ridiculous claim."

I reviewed 100 such statements on PolitiFact's website. By my count, of the 70 that originated with an identifiable individual or group (as opposed to a chain email or miscellaneous source), 61 were from the political right. That includes Rush Limbaugh saying President Obama is going to take away your right to fish, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer saying beheaded bodies are being found in the desert and Sarah Palin claiming death panels will stalk the elderly — 90 percent of the most audacious lies coming from conservatives.

And that word is used advisedly here. There is little that is truly conservative about what we are seeing.

No, this is extremism, true believers so rigidly committed to their ideological crusades that they feel justified in vandalizing reason and sacrificing integrity in furtherance of their cause. The end justifies any means. So, as was the case with Jon Kyl, if you can't prove your point with the facts at hand, make up some facts and prove it with those.

It says much about the intellectual state of what passes for conservatism and the intellectual state of the union itself that this sort of behavior has become business as usual, just another day in the Zeitgeist.

This cannot end well. To continue down this path is to carve out a future of intellectual incoherence and international irrelevance, to doom ourselves to yet more of a fractured political discourse that is loud, ignorant and incapable of reason, much less resolution.

And maybe Sen. Kyl's claim was "not intended to be a factual statement," but just so you know? Mine is.

Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.'s column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His email address is: lpitts@miamiherald.com

Editorials & Opinion | Conservatives, the undisputed champions of untruth | Seattle Times Newspaper