Both before and after this year's revelations of sexual abuse of minors by some Catholic priests, Bishop Donald W. Wuerl of the Diocese of Pittsburgh was a leader in the American hierarchy in putting the welfare of victims above a simplistic desire to protect the church from scandal. In 1993 he refused to comply when a Vatican court ordered him to reinstate an accused molester he had banned from ministry. Bishop Wuerl later won a reversal of the decree.
In recognition of his forthrightness on this issue, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops last week named him to a new committee that is designed to help bishops carry out what Bishop Wuerl called "the spirit and the letter" of tough new guidelines. Under a charter adopted by the bishops last summer, no priest who has abused a minor can remain in ministry or identify himself as "Father."
The five-man committee is intended to address a frequent criticism of the bishops' new policy: that while it deals firmly with abusive priests it does nothing to hold bishops accountable. In the past, bishops in several dioceses transferred priests accused of abuse to new assignments, often out of a naive belief that abusers could be "reformed" and safely put in contact with children again.
Because Roman Catholic bishops are under the direct control of the pope, the committee cannot order bishops to implement the new rules. But Bishop Wuerl said bishops on the panel would work "on the level of fraternal support and fraternal encouragement" to persuade their colleagues of the importance of confronting this problem.
In that role, we hope Bishop Wuerl will seek to hold his fellow bishops to his own high standards.
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