Area clergy wrote policy in '91

By Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published July 2, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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The national clergy sex abuse scandal erupted in January 2002, following revelations of more than 130 cases against a Boston priest, John Geoghan. Soon, victims were coming forward in dioceses across the country.

In April 2002, Pope John Paul II summoned all U.S. cardinals to Rome for a dressing-down, declaring that sexual abuse will not be tolerated. In June, the nation's bishops met in Dallas to develop a policy that called for zero tolerance of abuse.

Denver already had a working sex abuse policy, one of the first in the country, that was developed in 1991. It was updated to comply with the new national guidelines.

The revised policy called for education and training programs on sex abuse issues.

The policy emphasizes that if sexual abuse is discovered by anyone in the archdiocese, it must be reported to a local law enforcement agency and the archdiocese pledges to cooperate fully with law enforcement and investigative authorities.

Since 2002, the abuse fallout has led to the bankruptcies of five U.S. dioceses. Abuse-related costs for the Catholic Church in the U.S. have reached at least $2.3 billion.

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