Deliver Us

In this episode, we look at the reforms the U.S. Catholic Bishops drafted after the sexual abuse crisis of 2002. How did these new rules change things for Catholics in parishes around the country?

We look at the Dallas Charter for the Protection of Children—a set of policies that the bishops drafted to safeguard children from sex abuse. Governor Frank Keating of Oklahoma tells us what it was like to monitor compliance with anti-abuse policies as the chair of a national review board, and former F.B.I. agent Kathleen McChesney explains how she helped to implement the rules. We also hear from Jane Casserly Myers, a lay Catholic woman who had to deal with these changes in her home parish.

Finally, America’s national correspondent Michael O’Loughlin explains how one of the public faces of the Dallas Charter—former Archbishop Theodore McCarrick—came to be found guilty of abuse of a minor himself decades later.

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In this episode of “Deliver Us” we ask: Is the cover-up history? We talk to journalist Jason Berry, who reported on an abuser priest in the ’80s for National Catholic Reporter, as well as members of The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team, who broke the news of the sex abuse crisis in 2002. We ask them: how did the church cover up abuse?

Then, we fast-forward to today to see whether or not the church is still hiding sex abuse. What can we learn from the past? And why is full transparency so difficult to achieve? Peter Steinfels, who has written critically about the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report for Commonweal, helps us understand the data.

Links:

Jason Berry’s book, Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children

The original Spotlight reporting

Peter Steinfels on the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report

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In our second episode of “Deliver Us,” we look at two suspected causes of the sex abuse crisis: celibacy and gay priests.

Psychologist Thomas Plante has worked clinically and academically in the area of clerical sexual abuse for 30 years, and he describes the behaviors and traits that are common among abuser priests. Margaret Smith of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice gives us a deep dive on the data. She says that the statistics do not support theories that celibacy and gay priests caused the abuse crisis.

After looking at the data, Maggi asks three men a more personal question: How’s your celibate life going? These men had different experiences of celibacy in the Catholic church, and help us to understand how the church can better help priests to live healthy, celibate lives.

Links:

Thomas Plante: No, homosexuality is not a risk factor for the sexual abuse of children

The John Jay Study on the causes of the sex abuse crisis

Patrick Gothman’s ministry for queer Catholics

The theme music for Deliver Us is composed and produced by Kris McCormick. Additional music courtesy of APM.

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On our debut episode of “Deliver Us,” Maggi Van Dorn asks: How can I stay in a church where so many children have been hurt? Not everyone does. Melinda Henneberger, a journalist for The Kansas City Star, tells Maggi why the latest wave of sex abuse news pushed her to leave the Catholic Church. In the hopes of understanding what the church’s future might look like, Maggi also talks to Brian Flanagan, a theologian who puts the sex abuse crisis into historical perspective.

For show notes, links and more content visit: http://deliveruspodcast.org

The theme music for Deliver Us is composed and produced by Kris McCormick. Additional music courtesy of APM.

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Will the Catholic Church's sex abuse crisis ever end? That's a question everyone has been asking since the latest wave of news in 2018. In Deliver Us, host Maggi Van Dorn is a Catholic committed to healing the church from the inside. She wants to know: How did this happen? And what, if anything, can we do to help? Hear from experts, advocates, and survivors to learn what the church can do to move forward. Because you can’t fix something until you know how it’s broken

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