Annual Report
2019 Annual Report: Findings and Recommendations Report on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, by the USCCB Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection and the National Review Board, June 2020
2019 Annual Report: Findings and Recommendations Report on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, by the USCCB Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection and the National Review Board, June 2020
The Catholic Church in the United States has confronted the scandal of child sexual abuse by clergy for nearly 20 years. My brother bishops and I want to apologize to all those who have endured abuse at the hands of someone in the Church and we want to express our pastoral commitment to helping every victim-survivor find healing and hope.
From out of the failures of our past, Catholic dioceses across the country have worked hard to put in place policies and programs to protect young people and to create safe environments in our parishes, schools and other ministries. Hundreds of thousands of adults throughout the country have been trained in abuse prevention and reporting. Hundreds of thousands more in leadership positions have been fingerprinted or undergone other forms of extensive background checks. Dioceses have also implemented strict reporting requirements, working closely with local law enforcement officials to report abuse allegations and remove accused perpetrators from ministry.
As a result of these efforts, which would not be possible without the advice of courageous abuse survivors, and the commitment of tens of thousands of lay professionals and volunteers, new cases of sexual misconduct by priests involving minors are rare today in the Catholic Church in the United States. That is a key finding of this year’s independent audit on the Church’s abuse prevention efforts. As you will read in the pages that follow, nationwide in 2019, from out of more than 37,000 diocesan and religious order priests, there were 37 allegations involving current year minors, of which 8 were substantiated and the priests were removed from ministry. All of these allegations were reported to law enforcement. Of course, every case is one too many, and we remain vigilant and determined to prevent this evil.
This is the seventeenth annual independent audit of the U.S. bishops’ implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People that we adopted in 2002 and have updated several times since then. This year’s report covers 2019, a year that also marked an important new moment in the Church’s ongoing efforts to increase accountability and transparency in our handling of allegations of abuse.
In February 2019, Pope Francis convened the first-ever global summit on the protection of minors in the Church. As a follow up to this summit, in May, Pope Francis issued Vos estis lux mundi (“You Are the Light of the World”), setting new rules and procedures to ensure that the world’s bishops and religious superiors are held accountable for allegations made against them for either committing abuse or mishandling abuse claims.
In response to Vos estis, the U.S. bishops in their November 2019 annual meeting affirmed our episcopal commitment to hold ourselves to the highest standards of accountability before God and before the family of God. Among several important new measures, we have implemented a tollfree telephone and online mechanism for reporting allegations of abuse and sexual misconduct involving bishops.
I invite you to study these pages, which include the independent audit of the firm StoneBridge Business Partners, along with a progress report from the Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection. What this report shows, once more, is that the Church’s commitment to this vital work of safeguarding our children, youth, and vulnerable adults is working. On behalf of my brother bishops, I would like to extend my gratitude to the many priests, lay staff, volunteers, and consultants for their dedication to this effort.
His Excellency Archbishop José H. Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops