Bishop Thomas Daly of Spokane, Washington, was a San Francisco priest assigned to Marin Catholic High School when the Vatican approved the 2002 Dallas Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, including a new “zero-tolerance” policy mandating the removal of priests facing “credible” accusations of abuse.
For Bishop Daly, ordained in 1987 and appointed the bishop of Spokane in 2015, much of his ministry has been shaped and shadowed by the shocking revelations of clerical predation and episcopal cover-up that ignited the 2002 clergy-abuse crisis.
“My years as a high-school administrator taught me the importance of having procedures in place to protect young people,” Bishop Daly told the Register, noting that those lessons were reinforced when he served on the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee for the Protection of Children & Young People.
But after searing revelations of episcopal abuse brought down disgraced former-cardinal Theodore McCarrick in 2018, a campaign to strengthen bishop accountability shifted to center stage.
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