Program on the Philadelphia Grand Jury Report

For those readers in the Philly area on Tues, Nov.1 at 3:30pm, we will be holding at Villanova Law (rm. 30) a panel of "Reflections on the Grand Jury Report on Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia," featuring Jim Post (VLS '68), former president of the national Voice of the Faithful; Charles Zech, an economist and Director of Villanova University's Center for the Study of Church Management; and yours truly. I will be talking about some of the legal issues. Moderating all this and offering his own thoughts will be my colleague, Patrick Brennan, our Scarpa Chair of Catholic Legal Studies. As you can imagine, the Grand Jury Report continues to generate angst and recriminations running in all sorts of directions here in the Archdiocese. I should also add that on December 8, at 12 noon at the law school, Nick Cafardi, former dean of Duquesne Law, a canonist, and original member of the USCCB's National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Youth, will speak on "The Code of Canon Law and the Philadelphia Grand Jury Report: A Civil Law Critique of the Canonical Process." I will post an announcement of that program again when we are closer to the date. I suspect Patrick and I will have some posts on Tuesday's program after it's over. I see full and public discussion of these difficult and sensitive topics in a Catholic law school as essential to our mission.

--Mark