EWTN Global Catholic Network to Air LIVE Town Hall Meeting on the National Review Board Report on Clerical Sexual Abuse Hosted by Catholic University of America

PRESS ADVISORY

ALL TIMES EASTERN STANDARD

Irondale, AL (EWTN) – As part of EWTN's coverage of the upcoming report by the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Youth, the EWTN Global Catholic Network will air a LIVE Town Hall Meeting from Caldwell Hall Auditorium at The Catholic University of America campus on Friday, Feb. 27, 2004, at 8 p.m. on television, radio and the Internet (www.ewtn.com). The panelists will include review board members and other Catholic leaders.

Raymond Arroyo, EWTN news director, will host and moderate the EWTN News Town Hall Meeting on the report from the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Youth. On Friday, Feb. 27, the board is scheduled to release the last of three reports on clergy sexual abuse in the U.S. Catholic Church. The report is expected to contain the findings of a survey by criminologists, detailing all known allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests in the past 50 years as well as a preliminary analysis of the causes and context of the abuse, based on interviews the review board conducted with bishops, victims and offenders.

Members of the review board, Catholic scholars and writers, and members of the clergy will discuss the report and its implications. Panelists include national review board members Robert Bennett, Anne Burke and William Burleigh; editors Kate O’Beirne and the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus; scholar George Weigel; and members of the clergy, including Bishop John D’Arcy, of the Diocese of Ft. Wayne-South Bend, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and Archbishop Raymond Burke of the Archdiocese of St. Louis. The 90-minute live show will include discussions with the invited experts and questions from a studio audience as well as from a worldwide viewing audience. Encore times for the show are as follows: Saturday, February 28, 2004, 1AM, Sunday, February 29, 2004, 4:30PM, Monday, March 1, 2004, 10AM, and 11PM.

EWTN Global Catholic Network, in its 23rd year, is available in more than 85 million television households in 110 countries, making it the largest religious media network in the world.