Voice of the Faithful

of Greater Philadelphia

 

P.O. Box 4397, Philadelphia, PA 19118-8397

 

 

November 29, 2004

 

Cardinal Justin Francis Rigali

Archdiocese of Philadelphia

222 North 17^th Street

Philadelphia, PA 19102

 

Dear Cardinal Rigali:

I am writing to you on behalf of Voice of the faithful of Greater Philadelphia regarding the decision taken at the recent meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to use a self-reporting system on sexual abuse rather than having independent investigators do annual audits of each diocese. We find this decision deeply troubling since it clearly weakens the system that the bishops had put in place to assure compliance with the Dallas Charter. Moving to a self-reporting system, it seems to us, will undercut the bishops' already damaged credibility and trustworthiness in the eyes of the faithful.

 

How profoundly the faithful's trust in their bishops has been eroded was pointed out vividly in a recent study by the Catholic University of America and Purdue University. It found that nearly four out of five Catholics feel ashamed and embarrassed by their Church and that nearly three-quarters believe that the failure of bishops to stop the abuse is a bigger problem than the abuse itself. A self-reporting system on child sexual abuse can only increase the laity's skepticism about the bishops' commitment to follow through on the Dallas Charter. Basically a self-reporting system asks the faithful simply to trust that the bishops will report honestly on the same abuse which, in the past, they covered up. No outside, objective body will be able to assess the accuracy of these self-reports. Many of the faithful will ask the same question posed by SNAP: "Would we let building owners with terrible safety records conduct self-surveys on their compliance with fire codes?"

 

Those of us in Voice of the Faithful would prefer to have Church leaders whose credibility and concern inspires the faithful's trust. Therefore, we ask you, first, to dialogue with your brother bishops with the aim of reconsidering and reversing the decision to move from outside audits to self-reporting. Second, we ask you to become an advocate in the bishops' conference for an openness that will allow the votes of individual bishops in these matters to be known publicly. In the current case, we know that the vote to initiate self-reporting was189 to 35. However, we don't know which bishops favored the change and which were against it.