Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, has issued a statement marking the 20th anniversary of the Dallas charter, which established that “when even a single act of sexual abuse by a priest or deacon is admitted or is established after an appropriate process in accord with canon law, the offending priest or deacon will be removed permanently from ecclesiastical ministry, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state, if the case so warrants.”