Eight Years and Still Walking

In five months, we will mark the eighth anniversary of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report on clergy sexual abuse. August 14, 2018. The date is seared into the memory of every Catholic in this state.

Eight years. In that time, a lot has changed. Bishop Zubik retired. Bishop Eckman was installed. Dozens of parishes were merged. The Synod on Synodality convened and concluded. A new pope, Leo XIV, took the chair of Peter. The world endured a pandemic. And CCOC — founded in the fire of that moment — continued its work, month after month, year after year.

I want to be honest about where things stand.

We have made progress. The Diocese of Pittsburgh strengthened its child protection protocols. Reporting mechanisms exist. The independent reconciliation program compensated many survivors. The culture of silence that enabled abuse is less absolute than it was. These are real gains and they should be acknowledged.

But the deeper reforms — the structural changes that would make the conditions that allowed abuse truly impossible — remain incomplete. Lay oversight of diocesan functions is still largely advisory. Financial transparency, while improved, lacks the rigor that would make it a genuine safeguard. The clerical culture that elevated deference over accountability has been challenged but not dismantled.

Georgetown University's CARA has now compiled twenty years of research on clergy abuse. The data tells us something uncomfortable: the problem was not a few bad actors. It was a system. A system of concentrated authority, insufficient oversight, institutional self-protection, and a theology of the priesthood that made questioning a priest feel like questioning God.

Changing a system requires more than good intentions. It requires new structures. CCOC's seven focus groups represent our best effort at articulating what those structures should look like. And the Synod — with its emphasis on co-responsibility, transparency, and shared governance — has given us the theological language and institutional backing to demand them.

As I write this, it's the middle of Lent. A season of honest self-examination. The Church asks us to look inward, to name our failings, to commit to change. I'm asking the institution to do the same.

Not with another listening session. Not with another committee. With action.

Open the financial books fully. Give lay councils real authority. Implement the synodal practices that dioceses across the country are adopting. Partner with organizations like CCOC instead of treating us as outsiders. And never, ever let the passage of time become an excuse for inaction.

Eight years is a long time. My fellow board members — Jan, Gretchen, Greg, John, Betsy, Don, Jim, Marlene, and all our focus group coordinators and members — have given more hours than I can count to this work. Not because we're angry. Because we believe in this Church.

We're still walking. We'll keep walking. And we invite every Catholic in Pittsburgh to walk with us.

Because the road doesn't end here. It leads somewhere worth going.