“Submission to the Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops”
6 May 2002

Beginning in January 2002, publicity regarding sexual offenses by Catholic clerics in the United States and the filing of lawsuits against dioceses, especially but not only the Archdiocese of Boston, constituted a crisis that the Catholic bishops of the United States were compelled to deal with. On 23 April, the American cardinals met with Pope John Paul II, who supported taking action to deal with the underlying evils both of the abuse and the inappropriate responses of many bishops to it.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops had established an ad hoc committee to plan how the Conference would deal with the crisis at its meeting in Dallas in June. Having reflected for several years on potential actions by the bishops that could help deal with and prevent clerical sexual offenses, Grisez presented his analysis and suggestions in a submission to the ad hoc committee. He mailed it to every member of the committee and to certain other bishops who seemed likely to be open to his thoughts on the matter.

At their meeting in June, the bishops especially strove to deal with the public relations disaster. They also adopted a policy for dealing with past and future clerical sexual offenses, and set out plans for implementing that policy. There was, however, no sign that Grisez’s submission had any effect. Moreover, while the U.S. bishops subsequently dealt far more firmly with clerical offenders, they seemed to do nothing, either in 2002 or later, to reform the defective attitudes and practices of bishops that led to the crisis and have been—and remain—at least as serious an evil as clerical sexual offenses themselves.

Grisez publishes his Submission here, copyright © 2009, and reserves the right to make and distribute copies for sale. However, he hereby grants everyone the right to print out and distribute without charge copies of this document provided the source is identified and this copyright information included.

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