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January 20, 2008
Archdiocese passes annual child-protection audit
The Archdiocese of Chicago is in compliance with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops charter for child sexual-abuse prevention following a 2007 audit by The Gavin Group.
A letter sent to Cardinal George from William Gavin of The Gavin Group, dated Jan. 1, 2008, stated “the conclusions reached as to the compliance of your archdiocese with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People are based on the completeness and accuracy of the information furnished by the archdiocese.”
The Gavin Group is an independent auditing firm contracted by the U.S. bishops to audit every U.S. diocese for compliance of the 2002 charter. The audits are conducted annually and this is the fifth audit for the archdiocese.
“I am pleased that Cardinal George has received confirmation from The Gavin Group that the Archdiocese of Chicago is in full compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. The weeklong review in the fall affirms the commitment made by Cardinal George to the full protection of children and youth,” said archdiocesan Chancellor Jimmy Lago, who added that the archdiocese also has programs that go beyond the requirements of the charter.
A team led by the archdiocese’s Office for Protection of Children and Youth compiled the necessary volumes of data and worked with outside auditors who spent a week in its offices reconciling data.
Under the charter, the archdiocese must comply with 17 articles, which include providing the auditors information on the number of abusers and victims and the number of sexabuse prevention trainings and background checks conducted within the archdiocese.
Once the auditors complete their work, they turn it over to another person in The Gavin Group for further indepth review and approval.
These annual audits will continue indefinitely under the charter and are a positive thing, said Jan Slattery, director of the archdiocese’s Office for Protection of Children and Youth.
“We are held honest by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops by this annual audit,” she said. “They’re not backing off this. They are really testing now to see if we are really doing what we say we are doing.”
