Honor obliges that I note that last Friday, the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops finally did acknowledge the eruption of scandal in Philadelphia, in the form of a statement from its Administrative Committee, conveyed over the signature of its president, New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan. As Grant Gallicho points out over at dotCommonweal, the statement does not actually name its raison d’être, “Philadelphia.” What it does is offer reassurance that the USCCB’s Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, adopted in Dallas in 2002, “remains strongly in place.”

Except, of course, in Philadelphia, where the charter was, as they say, honored in the breach. The Administrative Committee, which speaks for the USCCB when the USCCB is not in session, indicated a collective desire to “strengthen” the Charter “even more” when it conducts a “long planned review” of the thing at the USCCB’s regular meeting in June. One hopes that among the items under consideration will be what to do about a diocese that ignores the provisions of the Charter.