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Covering the USCCB
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with Vatican approval as special U.S. church legislation for handling all alle-
gations of child sexual abuse by any deacon or priest. The committee also has
responsibility for overseeing the two most extensive studies of child sexual
abuse ever conducted anywhere—one (completed in 2004) on the nature and
extent of Catholic clergy sexual abuse of minors in the United States from
1950 to 2002, and one (still underway in 2008) on the causes and context of
that abuse.
The Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection staffs the committee. Its
executive director is Deacon Bernard Nojadera. The secretariat also provides
staff assistance to the National Review Board, a board appointed by the USCCB
president to review diocesan compliance with the child protection charter; to
oversee annual diocesan audits on child protection policies, procedures and
practices; and to recommend ways that abuse prevention and child protection
may be enhanced in the future.
OTHER USCCB COMMITTEES
In addition to the programmatic committees, the USCCB has the Administrative
Committee, Committee on Budget and Finance, Committee on Priorities and
Plans, and Executive Committee.
Administrative Committee
Briefly described earlier in this chapter, the Administrative Committee is the
highest authority of the conference after the entire body of bishops when
they meet in general assembly. For legal purposes it also serves as the Board
of Trustees of the USCCB as a civil corporation. In addition to the four con-
ference officers, its members include the chairmen of all the standing com-
mittees who are elected by the general membership, as well as an elected
representative from each of the 15 USCCB regions. (One region, created
in 2006, consists of all the bishops of the Eastern Catholic churches. The
other 14 are geographic regions of the bishops of the Latin Church.) Also on
the Administrative Committee are the chairman of the Board of Directors of
Catholic Relief Services, if he is not the USCCB president, and the immediate
past president of the USCCB during the first year after completion of his term.
Each region also elects an alternate, who may cast his vote at any meeting not
attended by the region’s representative.
Administrative Committee meetings are closed to the public and the
media, but any bishop may attend. In practice, few bishops who are not