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Dioceses across the country are marking National Child Abuse Prevention Month, and Cardinal Blaise Cupich and Bishop Barry Knestout are urging renewed vigilance and commitment to protecting children.<\/p>\n
In a video message on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Cupich expressed gratitude at the bishops’ adoption of the 2002 “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” while Nestout separately emphasized April as a time of prayer, education, and commitment to the well-being of youth.<\/p>\n
Cupich described the bishops Enactment of the 2002 “Charter for the Protection of Children and Youth”<\/a> The video featured “something important and something I’m really proud of.”<\/p>\n “When I look back at 50 years of being a priest and 27 years as a bishop, one of the things that happened during my time was that the Church would come together in this country to protect and defend people who are facing abuse,” the Chicago archbishop said. <\/p>\n “I was chair of the Committee to Protect Children and Youth, but was also involved in the moment in 2002 when we enacted the charter in Dallas,” Cupich said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then, of course, when we released the study by the John Jay School of Criminal Justice, I was the chair of that committee,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, I think it’s an important contribution to the life of the church that I really acknowledge as an important thing and something I’m proud of,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n was serving on Cupich Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Exploitation<\/a> When the abuse crisis broke in 2002 he was part of the group that helped draft the charter. The ad hoc committee was established in 1993 by the then National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), when the conference was “dealing with the subject of sexual abuse by clergy since the mid-1980s.”<\/p>\n