Denver Catholic

9 DENVER CATHOLIC | MAY 25-JUNE 7, 2019 www.archden.org/givenow DONOR • Donating is easy and fits your monthly budget • You will receive fewer gift requests • Your gift will increase over a twelve-month period • You can increase, pause, or stop monthly donations at any time ARCHDIOCESE OF DENVER • Reduces postage and administrative costs • Ensures consistent cash flow throughout the year • Assists ministry planning • Helps your parish To maximize the impact of your charitable contribution, please consider a recurring monthly gift. Consistent monthly giving will benefit you and the archdiocese. P C M R G 20 19 taken issue with internal Church prac- tices. In 2015, he signed a letter urging San Francisco's Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone to end an archdiocesan requirement that Catholic school teachers live in accord with the moral teachings of the Catholic Church. The letter said the requirement had "a divisive tone, which stands in stark contrast to the values that defi ne the Bay Area and its history." The right to confi dential religious communications has been recognized in Western legal traditions for centu- ries.' The sacrament of confession is understood within Catholic teaching to be a revelation to God of sins, and confession is kept absolutely confidential in order to ensure that no penitent is discouraged from making use of the sacrament. California's bill would be a striking reversal of long-standing legal prece- dent preceding even the foundation of the United States. The state would be the fi rst to explicitly revoke religious confi dentiality while keeping protec- tion for other kinds of confi dential con- versations in place. Gomez's May 15 column noted directly that the proposed measure "only targets Catholic priests." While the bill's sponsor insists that's not true, the bill was introduced shortly after the release a Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing decades of clerical sexual abuse allegations, and after the scandal that began June 20, 2018, when credible allegations of abuse against former cardinal Theodore McCarrick were made public. Gomez also said this week that "from a public policy standpoint, if the goal is to prevent child sexual abuse, it does not make sense to single out Catholic priests and the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation, which is the formal name for confession." The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, California's largest, has faced two allegations of child sexual abuse by priests in the last ten years. According to the'Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, there are seven allega- tions of clerical sexual abuse made each year, across the United States. Although all educators in California, as in most states, are mandated report- ers, the U.S. Department of Justice esti- mates that 10 percent of public school students in the U.S. will experience sexual misconduct by a school employee before graduating from high school. 6,220,413 students were enrolled in California public schools in 2017-2018, according to the state's department of education. If California does not signifi - cantly deviate from national statistics, 622,041 of those students are likely to experience sexual misconduct by public school employees before graduation. Hill, himself a licensed teacher, has not weighed in publicly on another California bill that would remove the civil statute of limitations for lawsuits involving sexual abuse claims against employees of public schools and other California institutions. The Archdiocese of Los Ange- les, along with five other Califor- nia dioceses,' established May 14' an independently managed compensation program, which would provide compensatory payment to those alleging to be victims of priestly sexual abuse, regardless of when that abuse is alleged to have happened. Gomez, for his part, has called Cath- olics to oppose the confession bill, which he called "a mortal threat to the religious freedom of every Catholic." "The privacy of that intimate con- versation — our ability to speak with total honesty from our lips to God's ear — is absolutely vital to our relationship with God," Gomez wrote. At the same time, the archbishop encouraged Catholics to pray for the healing of abuse victims and their families. "Let us ask our Blessed Mother Mary to help us bring healing to every vic- tim-survivor of abuse and help us build a society where every child is loved, pro- tected, and safe." PHOTO BY ANNIE SPRATT | UNSPLASH

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