the confession of a non-compliant bishop

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Sep 13, 2005

Bless me, Ms. Kettelkamp, for I am non-compliant. It has been one year since my last audit. I accuse myself of the following failures in my polices, procedures, and protocols:

• Last year I winked at the auditors and asked, “If you accept my check can we say that we did even though we didn’t?”
• I committed three self-audits and one full audit with others.
• I used unacceptable forms of safe environment training for children.
• I gave pamphlets to parents and only asked them to review the contents with their children.
• I engaged in training programs for children that were totally-left-to-the-parents-and-were-not-conducted-as-a-regular-part-of-a-school-or-religious-education-program-curriculum-or-classroom-work-and-overseen-by-the arch/diocese/eparchy-and-did-not satisfy-the-requirements-of-Article-12-of-the-Charter. Well, 30 times.
• I even merely obtained parental certifications for non-participation without offering them safe environment sex education training, ten times.
• I was considered ‘non-compliant’ by the USCCB and didn’t care, 15 times.
• I was not trusting enough in the mandatory safe-environment sex-education programs for children of public schools even though the training was acceptable to the Office of Child and Youth Protection. Oh, 65,000 times (once each for every child attending public school in the diocese).
• I pointed out to parents that the child abuse crisis in the Church was a gay exploitation of adolescent boy crisis rather than, primarily, a "pedophile priest" crisis, many, many times.
• I failed to use capitalized letters when referring to the office of child and youth protection 5-- no, make that 6-- times.
• I suggested to parents that mandatory "safe environment" programs promoted by the Office of Child and Youth Protection of the USCCB are truly sex-education programs in disguise, 75 times.
• I harbored thoughts that mandatory safe-environment sex-education programs are really designed to quell the media spotlight on the dereliction of duty of bishops, 150 times.
• I read George Orwell’s 1984 to prepare for the mandated arch/diocesan/eparchial (sigh) audit, once.
• Oh, I did not act on the Required Action issued by the Office of Child and Youth Protection assigned after my last audit.
• And if I’m really not sorry after confessing but continue to pay the usual arch/diocesan/eparchial assessment to the USCCB, will you get off my back? Let me rephrase that…