Bishop Joseph Perry: Catholic Church among 'safest places' for children

Tribulation Times

READ THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: http://www.oneyearbibleonline.com/march.asp?version=63&startmmdd=0101

April 14, 2010  

(1Pe 5:8-10) Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in faith: knowing that the same affliction befalls, your brethren who are in the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little, will himself perfect you and confirm you and establish you.

COMMENTARY: Remove First Wooden Beam From Your Own Eyed, and Let the One Without Sin Cast the First Stone at Her
 
EXCERPT- Bishop: Catholic Church among 'safest places' for children

"No doubt, this year's Holy Week may appear to have shifted more in the direction of Good Friday rather than Easter Sunday. Lots of people are weighing in with their comments about the Church and its failings.

Society reacts to the Church with a certain ambivalence. On the one hand the Church is excoriated for its moral stance on a number of issues and reviled for being out-of-touch with modern ideas and freedoms. On the other, the church is excoriated when instances surface among its members of moral turpitude. Catholics and non-Catholics alike, even if they are hardly religiously observant, sense the Church bearing down on their lives. That in itself provokes either resentment or welcome. This influence certainly exposes Catholicism to ready critique.

People expect the church to be immune from the filth of the world, to use the pope's term here. And would that that were the case. But, we are a human community, and given that our highest ideals represent superlative achievement in any life, not everyone can reach what we preach and require for leadership and rank-and-file. We've known this for 2000 years. For this reason, the Church has never been unnerved by sinners in her midst. We do what we can to change them for the honor of God!

In every crate of apples you will find a couple bruised ones; even a couple rotten ones. But that does not mean the whole crate is bad. We are a Church of sinners and saints and this mix the outside world does not understand.

Then too, our fault as Church is perhaps that we did not imagine that certain of our clergy could and would defy the Church in what it stands for by behavior that is despicable. Ours is a trusting institution. We trust that every one wishes to do as we do and do as Jesus would do. But more vigilance is clearly needed.

With every citation of wrong-doing brought to light, it would appear progress has not been made with vigilance in the area of child and youth protection, when in fact, much progress has been made. True enough, in this day and age, institutions of all types are faced before the scrutiny of the multi-motive press and media to keep them honest. Some of the press and media are our friends, but not all. Curiously, the press and media are not that interested in what the Church is doing in this area:

Over the last 25 years, vigorous action has taken place within the Church to avoid harm to children:

    * Potential seminarians receive extensive psycho-sexual evaluation prior to admission.

    * Virtually all seminaries concentrate their efforts on the safe environment for ministry.

    * There have been very few cases of recent sexual abuse of children by clergy during the last decade or more. But, there seems to be a journalistic fascination with cases from the past and missteps trying to work through those cases.

    * Catholic dioceses across the country have taken extraordinary steps to ensure the safety of children and vulnerable adults. Just about every diocese that has a web-page advertises on its front page contact information and numbers to be accessed when anything appears suspicious in the ranks of leadership whether by clergy or laity.

    * Every Church employee who teaches, coaches, or directs children and youth go through criminal background checks and must undergo training sessions in safe environment and appropriate adult-to-child behavior.

    * Similarly, school children and teens undergo age-appropriate education to recognize adult gestures, good and bad.

    * Annual audits of every Catholic diocese in the country take place by outside examiners versed in criminal justice that monitor these mandated background checks, safe-environment training for church workers and any reported instances of misconduct and the resolution of pending cases. These reports are made public each year.

As a result of the last eight years of an official Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, we can say, confidently, that there is no clergyman functioning in the Church in the United States today who has a credible accusation of this nature documented in his background.

And it does not stop there. Every diocese is constantly re-looking at its child and youth safety policies and renewing the membership on its review boards made up of lay experts in fields of child care and protection advising the bishops to make sure these policies are doing the job we want done. Child protection measures will have to be constantly updated.

Other institutions bear this problem. It is essentially a societal problem that has touched every institution of society including the privacy of the family. Considering efforts made to heal the wounds caused by clergy misconduct, the Catholic Church is probably one of the safest places for children at this point in history.

Crimes of this nature should not take place in the Church. And, unfortunately, we have been slow to recognize a thorough approach to this anomaly within the halls of religion moving, as we have, from prayer and penance as a response way back, to sending people to therapy as a possible corrective and now to information that seems to indicate the incurable situation for many who are genuine perpetrators — hence the tendency of the public today to rest on merely the criminal aspects of the anomaly.

An enormous change in approach helped, namely, these policies have as their chief aim above all else and before all others, the protection of children and youth.

You may have seen an opinion column Good Friday (April 2) in The Wall Street Journal, by Peggy Noonan, that offers an insightful comment on things. She says:

      '...There are three great groups of victims in this story. The first and most obvious, the children who were abused, who trusted, were preyed upon and bear the burden through life. The second group is the good priests and good nuns, the great leaders of the church in the day to day, who save the poor, teach the immigrant and literally save lives. They have been stigmatized when they deserve to be lionized. And the third group is the Catholics in the pews — the heroic Catholics of America and now Europe, the hardy souls who in spite of what has been done to their church are still there, still making parish life possible, who hold high the flag, their faith unshaken. No one thanks those Catholics, sees their heroism, respects their patience and fidelity...with their prayers they keep the world going, and the old church too.'

Resurrection is the power of God over all the forces that diminish and destroy life. Greed diminishes us as surely as illness. Selfishness and crime is every big as destructive as despair. Resurrection is also the power of God to fulfill all the possibilities of life. We can be raised daily from self-centeredness to sacrificial service, from guilt and grief to forgiveness and hope, from the pains and scars of life to resurrected healing in Christ. As Christians we are being raised daily from death to life."

VATICAN WEBSITE: Guide to Understanding Basic CDF Procedures concerning Sexual Abuse Allegations

Ladder of Divine Ascent excerpt: Step 26- "On discernment of thoughts, passions, and virtues"

5. Every satanic conflict in us comes from these three generic causes: from negligence, or from pride, or from the envy of the demons. The first is pitiable, the second is most wretched, but the third is blessed.    

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