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When the U.S. bishops’ conference met in Orlando last month, bishops voted to pass a revision to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, the USCCB’s landmark safeguarding document, first issued in 2002.

USCCB 2025 fall plenary assembly. Credit: Jack Figge / The Pillar.

But while the revision passed, it did so amid some criticism: One bishop led an unsuccessful charge to delay a vote on the document, calling for more and broader consultation, of diocesan safeguarding leaders and priests, especially.

Victims’ advocacy groups gave the new document mixed reviews, and some sources close to the revision process told The Pillar that many people had expressed hope for a document which would broaden its scope to a wider vision of safeguarding, including the abuse and manipulation of vulnerable adults.

But bishops involved in the document’s revision said they followed a process of consultation, and that the body of American bishops decided not to expand the Charter’s scope, but to instead address related issues in a spate of documents to be released in coming years.

The Pillar talked with one such prelate, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, who is chairman of the USCCB’s canonical affairs committee, and was a member of the

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