Current Resources

Faced with the crisis of child sexual abuse by clerics that dramatically came to light in 2002, the church set up an aggressive safe environment program that is the envy of other organizations that work with children. From the 2009 audit, we can say the Catholic Church in the United States:

  • Trained more than 2.1 million clergy, employees, and volunteers in parishes in how to create safe environments and prevent child sexual abuse.
  • Prepared more than 5.2 million children to recognize abuse and protect themselves.
  • Ran background checks on more the 1,887,000 volunteers and employees, 166,000 educators, 52,000 clerics and 6,000 candidates for ordination.

The following are resources dioceses/eparchies may find useful in making the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People part of what we do as Church.


Email us at ocyp@usccb.org
Office of Child & Youth Protection | 3211 4th Street, N.E., Washington DC 20017-1194 | (202) 541-3000 © USCCB. All rights reserved.
Email us at scyp@usccb.org
Secretariat of Child & Youth Protection | 3211 4th Street, N.E., Washington DC 20017-1194 | (202) 541-3000 © USCCB. All rights reserved.