From First Things-As bishop of Pittsburgh, Wuerl was years ahead of his peers in responding to what would become the sexual abuse crisis. From the moment he arrived as bishop in 1988, Wuerl was meeting personally with victims at a time when many bishops would not even consider doing so. Within a year, Wuerl had established a diocesan committee to evaluate policies for responding to abuse allegations, a committee that grew to become the current Diocesan Review Board, nearly a decade before the Dallas Charter called for every diocese to have such a body. Wuerl also imposed a personal policy of “zero-tolerance” which stands comparison to any other diocesan policy today.
Despite the grand jury report’s frequent mentions of Wuerl, that document cannot dent the core statistic: During Wuerl’s nineteen years as bishop of Pittsburgh, nineteen new allegations were brought forward against diocesan priests, and eighteen of these priests were immediately and permanently removed from ministry. And curial officials have not forgotten the time Wuerl flew to Rome to personally resist an order to reinstate an accused cleric, a contest of wills he eventually won.
More here-
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/05/so-long-cardinal-wuerl
No comments:
Post a Comment