As we progress in healing, one thing is learning more and understanding a broader context. We grow in wisdom even if it requires an unflinching awareness of the way abusers protect each other – consciously and in some strange highly compartmentalized subconscious way. Recall that the Pulitzer Award-Winning Spotlight...
In 2018 with the McCarrick revelations, the public eye focused on abuse at seminaries. Some bishops commissioned outside reviews of seminaries, some instituted confidential helplines for seminarians. Recently, “15 seminaries have committed to meeting five sexual misconduct policy benchmarks developed by a group of laypeople, seminary leaders and bishops,”...
The Catholic Herald published a strong assessment of “How McCarricks Happen” (Stephen Bullivant and Giovanni Radhitio Putra Sadewo, April 18, 2021), which opens with: McCarricks are the malign by-products of a system ostensibly designed to create something else entirely: bishops who are, as per Canon 378, ‘outstanding in solid...
A quick look at ways Catholics (and others) can check on the progress the U.S. Church is making implementing the Charter - and the elements of the Charter that are important to track.
Fr. Hans Zollner and the Centre for Child Protection are promoting protections for children and vulnerable adults in every culture and region on the planet - unlike any other organization can. What are the challenges - and creative approaches needed?
Spirit Fire has been invited to become a partner-member in the Tutela Minorum, and we have been featured this week on the hub website by way of introduction: survivors in dialogue. Our many years’ worth of free resources will now be available worldwide, including with an expanded distribution of...
For anyone wondering about the status of U.S. Bishops currently under investigation following Pope Francis’s May 7, 2019, motu proprio Vos estes lux mundi, here is the most current list I could find (as of the date of its publication) in The Pillar. (CLICK HERE)
A Reflection The McCarrick Report struck me as a blip in the news. Coverage was commendable, but strangely brief. A few news groups are using it as a starting point; that is a good sign. Yet, the first news of McCarrick in 2018 had far greater impact. It was...
This continues The Healing Voices Series on Alice Miller: Icon & Ideas Bishops are committed to meeting with survivors of abuse by clergy in accordance with The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, a document ratified by all the bishops of the United States in 2002...
Bishop Robert Barron, author of Letter to a Suffering Church, and the Word on Fire pledged book-sale proceeds would be used to support victims of clergy abuse. The Maria Goretti Network is now a recipient of some of those pledged moneys. The Maria Goretti Network is operated in chapters,...
