LI diocese: Now in full compliance with sex abuse rules

Here are some snippets from an article in today's Newsday with my thoughts in red:

"The Diocese of Rockville Centre is now in full compliance with nationwide Roman Catholic Church regulations aimed at protecting children from sexual abuse, following its failure last year when it was audited on those rules."

[Actually there are no such 'nationwide rules' in the Catholic Church, just guidelines - bishops rule their own dioceses and can follow or ignore these guidelines at will.]

"Last year an audit found that, while the diocese passed virtually every aspect of the 13-article audit, it failed in one part of one article. Of five parishes audited, one did not take sufficient action to train church volunteers in "safe environments" - or at least did not produce proper documentation showing it did so, church officials said.
That problem has been cleared up, according to the latest audit, conducted by The Gavin Group, an outside organization that audits dioceses throughout the country."

[I wonder if auditing only 5 parishes in a diocese of 133 parishes is really enough? I am afraid the errant parish may have been St. Martin of Tours in Amityville, as they only had their volunteers go through Virtus this past year. I don't see why every parish can't have this Virtus thing in force without any slipups.]

"Some 84,000 people in the diocese including bishops, priests, deacons and lay people, have completed "Virtus" training to help them recognize the signs and symptoms of abuse and instruct them on how to act to keep children safe, the diocese said in a statement."

[84,000 is an astonishing number. I think it is great that many people have been through this training as any type of raising awareness is good. It is also astonishing to think that many people volunteer or work within the Church or Church related entities here on Long Island.]