Protecting God's Gifts to Us

By Bishop Paul S. Loverde
Special to the Herald
(From the issue of 6/17/04)

Today we begin a new chapter in protecting children. At the outset, let me acknowledge and thank our 26 newly-trained facilitators who have so graciously answered the calls of their local pastors to be trained over the past two days.

I would like to be brief and address a few questions you might be asking – How did we get here? How is what we are doing today tied to the mission of the Church? And finally, where are we going?

Allow me to begin by sharing a memory.

I grew up in the 40s. The quiet streets and parks of my small hometown of Pawcatuck, Connecticut – population 5,000 – were not too different from the Norman Rockwell paintings of small-town America at that time. We walked everywhere. We knew everyone. People were known by their families and ethnic enclaves. Few were divorced. Our walk to school, games and pranks were watched by the attentive eyes of the town’s majority of Italian and Irish Americans.

Whenever I went outside, there must have been at least "forty sets of eyes" watching me and my friends at any given time. On each side of my home and across Stillman Avenue lived caring neighbors whose names I knew. Around the corner, the retired fireman always sat on his front porch. My friends’ parents all lived within walking – or shouting – distance. People looked out for each other, and especially for each other’s children.

Many of you probably look back on similar childhoods in which the vigilant "sets of eyes" of your community were lovingly set upon you.

So, how did we get here – to this point, so remote from the streets of Pawcatuck, where we have deemed it necessary to provide parents and other adults with the tools to detect the warning signs of abuse, the ways to prevent abuse, the methods of properly reporting suspicions of abuse, and responding to allegations of abuse?

In short, our society – and tragically this includes members of the clergy – has failed children.

In February, where were the "sets of eyes" when we helplessly watched the footage of a security camera which caught the tragic kidnapping of 11 year-old Carlie Brucia of Sarasota, Florida? She was later murdered. In the state of Virginia alone last year, over 46,000 children were reported as abused or neglected. For many children in our communities, the safety net of watching eyes is just not there.

What has happened in the society at large?

There is a whole complex of reasons – and to go into each of them would require a week-long seminar. What we can say with certainty is that we are in a place where we need a restoration of help and sanity. Most of us in this room have likely been affected by the disintegration of society in so many areas, particularly in marriage, family life, and the authentic meaning of human sexuality.

We are also painfully aware of the ways in which some deacons, priests and bishops and religious brothers and sisters have ruptured the bond of trust – a bond which should be present. The number of children who have been abused within the Church is – like the number of children abused in Virginia –stark, painful, and real.

While one act of abuse is one too many, I think we can be grateful for the safeguards that our diocese has had in place for well over a decade. In a few minutes, Father Terry Specht, our Interim Director of the Child Protection and Safety Program, will go into greater detail on our diocese’s policies, but allow me to summarize. Since 1991, the Diocese of Arlington has had in place explicit policies on child protection that deal with clergy, church personnel, and lay volunteers. In our diocese, no cases of child sexual abuse are currently pending. In February, we made known the fact that over the course of the diocese’s 30-year history, 11 victims have claimed abuse by 8 priests, none of whom remains in ministry. One permanent deacon was also accused of child sexual abuse, and is no longer in ministry. All of the alleged incidents occurred before 1994.

Together we must continue to pray for the victims of this terrible abuse and for their families. Together we must resolve to do our utmost to prevent any further abuse.

At the national and diocesan levels, our answer to this has been resolute. "There is," as the Holy Father has said, "no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young" (April 23, 2002). In 2002, we bishops stated clearly that those priests and deacons who have committed so much as one single act of sexual abuse will "be removed permanently" (Essential Norm 8) from ministry. I have been clear that one act of abuse is one too many.

But amidst the sobering lessons of the recent past, I see a ray of hope. It is a hope that with this time of trial, "a purification of the entire Catholic community" is coming about, "a purification that is urgently needed if the Church is to preach more effectively the Gospel of Jesus Christ in all its liberating force" (Pope John Paul II, Address to U.S. Cardinals, April 23, 2003). It is a hope that this purification will, by God’s grace, result in a holier priesthood, a holier episcopate, a holier Church, and – last but not least! – a Church which more vigilantly protects her most precious gifts – our children.

Today, with our first Virtus training session, we gather to take another step, one which builds on our previous efforts at creating a safe environment in our diocese. Today we gather to begin another stage in our ongoing effort to make the Diocese of Arlington as unfriendly a place as possible to those who would prey on the innocence of our children.

The scandals have undoubtedly opened our eyes to the larger problem and reality of child sexual abuse in our society. With painful lessons in her recent past, we are raising the bar for the protection of children in our communities. One Child Protection Director from the Cleveland diocese, put it this way, "The scandal in the church may have got us here, but we are emerging as a leader in educating people to do something about it." Cleveland is training a total of 38,000 employees and volunteers in the Virtus program. With each of our facilitators offering several training sessions per year, my hope is that as many members of our diocese as possible will also seize this opportunity.

We gather today out of our love for children. This love routinely makes demands of us – from the all-night needs of a newborn baby to the steady and consistent modeling the faith in our homes. The Diocese of Arlington – a growing, vibrant Catholic community of over 390,000 – is rich in parents, teachers, priests, volunteers and countless others who unquestioningly and gladly accept the demands that these precious gifts of God make upon them. In fact, they realize that these demands are intricately tied to their own journey of faith. "Let the little children come to me…for to such belongs the kingdom of God," our Savior said, continuing, "Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it" (Mk. 10:14-15).

We have here today 26 men and women from our parishes who have given freely of their time in order to be trained in presenting this program. Some of these facilitators are able to give presentations in Spanish and Vietnamese. They are part of the front line of our parish-based attempt to create more "sets of eyes" throughout our diocese. In the coming months, these facilitators will be going out to parishes and providing needed training for our volunteers. As such, they are a vanguard in restoring trust and creating an environment for our precious heritage and gifts of God, our children. They are part of our overall effort to take responsibility for our role as men and women to whom God has entrusted the precious gifts of children.

I would like to say just a few words about how this program is related to our mission as the Catholic Church. Virtus is designed to help assist with creating those "sets of eyes" by aiding adults in creating a safe environment for our children, where the innocence of childhood is hopefully protected. Our facilitators have spent two sobering days focusing on human depravity and the ways in which predators seek to harm our children not only sexually, but emotionally and spiritually as well.

The Virtus program must be seen in the overall context of the Church’s teachings on human sexuality. Ours is a culture profoundly affected by a misunderstanding of the human body and of sexuality. Our culture cries out for a positive, healthy vision of the human person – and in a real sense, protecting and upholding that vision is why we are here today.

This is the vision of the human person made in the image of God. This is the vision of the sacrament of marriage and the gift of the family, the "domestic church" in which children first encounter the faith. Virtus begins for us a new chapter of deepened cooperation with parents in protecting children. As the Catechism states, parents are the "primary educators" of their children. It is my hope that parents, with the tools offered by Virtus and by our team of facilitators, will be further equipped to broach the topic of abuse prevention with their children.

If we are to truly make this diocese as unfriendly a place as possible for those who would prey upon our children, we must present a united front. The higher our Church’s understanding of abuse, the less chance our children will be vulnerable. I readily admit that no program will completely eliminate sexual abuse. However, we must do all in our ability to provide everyone in our communities of faith with the resources, skills and tools to be protected as best they can. Anyone who sees children as our best hope for the future – as I do – would want to take advantage of every available means of protecting our children.

I have asked before that the diocese join with me in creating a Catholic life and witness in our diocese that is "unmistakably marked by evangelization, reconciliation, unity, and service."

A critical part of that four-fold mission must be our passionate resolve as a family of faith to grapple with and confront –in visible and practical ways such as our Virtus program – the real and pressing dangers that threaten our children. Let us be unified as we press forward with our efforts to protect God’s gifts to us, our greatest treasure, our children. In our unity and resolve, they will sense the safety, trust, and love they need in order to grow as children of God.

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