It’s been nearly a quarter-century since the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops first passed its Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in Dallas, and in that time, the landscape around protecting children has changed.
What hasn’t changed, and will never change, is the need to focus on protecting children and on ministering to victim-survivors of abuse, according to staff members of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Office for the Protection of Children and Youth and Compliance.
“This is not a response to a crisis in 2002,” said OPCY senior director Leah Heffernan. “This is a real ministry, and it’s a strong and much needed ministry.”
Heffernan said the church in the United States, and the Archdiocese of Chicago in particular, take the commitment to protect children that the U.S. bishops made in 2002 seriously.
“It could have been met with, ‘Let’s meet with the mandates of the charter and not elaborate on it,’” Heffernan said. “I’m proud of the church and the archdiocese that the response has been, ‘Let’s make sure the mandates are reinforced.’”
The emphasis on creating and maintaining safe environments is huge, Heffernan said.
When the charter was created, the office received a spate of allegations from victim-survivors who came forward after the publicity created by a Boston Globe investigative series about how the Archdiocese of Boston had reassigned priests after credible accusations of sexual abuse of minors, Heffernan said.
“A lot of that was being responsive to those who had come forward,” she said. “Where we have grown is around the prevention side, the education side, which is a gift and a blessing. I see that as a significant change.”
Since 2002, the archdiocese has trained more than 300,000 adult staff members and volunteers in preventing situations that could lead to abuse. Archdiocesan parishes and schools also train 75,000 children each year in recognizing situations that could be unsafe, according to Sarah Nemecek, director of the Office of Safe Environment.
At the same time, the archdiocese continues to offer help to victim-survivors through its Office of Assistance Ministry, which was created by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in 1992, a decade before the Dallas charter.
Also in 1992, the archdiocese created what is now known as the Office of Child Abuse Investigation Review and the Independent Review Board, which advises the archbishop in assessing allegations of sexual abuse of minors.
Those three offices, along with the Prayer and Penance Program for priests withdrawn from ministry, make up the Office for Protection of Children and Youth and Compliance.
Heffernan worked for 18 years as director of the Office of Child Abuse Investigation and Review, left to lead the Diocese of Joliet’s Office of Child and Youth Protection, and returned as the office’s senior director in 2025.
“When I first started in 2002, there were maybe a total of five people in the office,” Heffernan said. “Now we have 10 people.”
Among those who have been in the office since before the charter was created is Mayra Flores, director of the Office of Assistance Ministry.
The office offers help to any victim-survivors who come forward, Flores said. That help is offered however people contact the office, from initially approaching their pastors to having an attorney contact the archdiocese.
Much of the help provided is assistance in finding and paying for therapy, and the office recently added a clinical coordinator to make sure that victim-survivors are receiving care that is appropriate for their needs, Flores said
“We recognize that the person calling us is in pain, and we say, ‘These are services we can provide,’” Flores said. “Here’s an office that is going to provide you services without any judgment.”
Staff members in the office said that one of the biggest changes is the familiarity that clergy, archdiocesan staff and lay Catholics have with both the work of the office and the need for it.
In the past, Heffernan said, people often did not want to speak about clerical sexual abuse, even to talk about prevention. Since the Dallas charter, dioceses have had to talk about it.
When parishes and schools started doing safe environment training, some people expressed resentment that they had to take the training when they hadn’t done anything wrong. Now parishes and schools are calling the office for help when they have a question, or finding ways to make prevention education more enjoyable and effective.
“It’s not taboo,” Heffernan said. “It’s not a fearful thing. If you have a question, call us. Nobody knows everything, but we’ll try to find out.”
With the number of laypeople with safe environment training, leaders at OPCY believe that they are also changing the wider culture and making it safer for children.
Meanwhile, the office continues to try to respond to new challenges to the safety of children.
“The world of risks to child safety is constantly changing and constantly expanding,” Flores said. “Including guidance with how we safely interact with minors online. One of the risks we’re continuing to learn about and develop preventative measures about is AI. We’re working to respond to this constantly shifting landscape of risks to children.”
For more information, visit protect.archchicago.org.