Contact: Kathleen Hohl, 414-769-3494

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has been found to be in compliance with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, adopted in June 2002. The complete independent audit for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee report is available at this link.

The Compliance Audit assesses how the Catholic dioceses throughout the United States performed in their efforts to integrate the Charter's standards into their diocesan administration. The Compliance Audit examines the four main sections of the Charter, which include:

• To promote healing and reconciliation;
• To guarantee effective response to allegations of sexual abuse of a minor;
• To ensure accountability of procedures;
• To protect the faithful in the future.

"We are certainly encouraged with the results of the national audit by the professional outside agents of the Gavin Group from Boston, here in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee," said Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan. "This process has been helpful in affirming the progress we have made during the past two years. It also affirms the positive initiatives of the past 10 years, especially in the area of outreach to victims. While we acknowledge that not everyone has always been pleased by the response of the Church, we continue to show our commitment to continuing our work, knowing that this is only the beginning of our efforts, not the completion.

"Here in Milwaukee we continue to show our commitment to fulfilling the pledges of the Charter through the policies and procedures in place for reporting allegations of sexual abuse; through the removal from ministry of any clergy who has been a perpetrator of sexual abuse of a minor, through education efforts, through the work of community leaders and experts who serve on our advisory boards and diocesan review boards; and through our commitment to justice for victims of abuse," said Archbishop Dolan.

"Knowing that this compliance audit is only the beginning, we have established several local oversight committees and agencies to rigorously review our continued efforts and policies to ensure full and complete compliance with the Charter continues.

"Strong oversight groups such as our local diocesan review board; our community advisory board; and the Eisenberg commission, which began the review here in March 2002, will ensure continued accountability," Archbishop Dolan concluded.

Archdiocese Earns Commendation for Victim Outreach

The Archdiocese earned a commendation from the audit team for its foresight in implementing an outreach program in 1989, as well as for establishing the Eisenberg Commission, which was set up to review policies and procedures in March 2002. “The Archdiocese has had a prevention policy on sexual abuse of minors since 1989, and this policy provides for an outreach program designed to provide immediate pastoral care to victims/survivors and their families,” the report states.

The Archdiocese also received a recommendation to make sure that the safe environment training, currently underway in the Archdiocese, includes parents and children. The goal of the archdiocesan Safeguarding All of God's Family program is to protect children and all family members from sexual abuse and related dangers. Many of the components of Safeguarding All of God's Family use the VIRTUS program, a nationally recognized training program developed by the National Catholic Risk Retention Group, Inc. Archdiocesan employees and parish and school staff and volunteers who regularly interact with minors, will participate in the training program. Age-appropriate abuse prevention education materials will be incorporated into Catholic school and religious education instruction.