Nancy Rissler began to cry as she spoke to three Catholic bishops gathered in Syracuse Thursday evening. Her 92-year-old uncle recently confided in his family that a Catholic priest had sexually abused him when he was young. Now living in a Syracuse nursing home, he has been struggling emotionally as his health declines, Risser said.
“Where are the priests?” she asked through tears. “Where is the support?”
Rissler and her husband, Tom, retired and moved to Burlington, Vermont, three years ago. They had returned to Syracuse to visit her uncle, who has no other family in the area.
The bishops and others in the room moved to reassure her. Father Fred Daly of All Saints Parish offered to visit her uncle at the nursing home to comfort and support him.
As the conversation continued, other attendees approached Rissler to offer support and discuss ways to help her uncle.
The exchange came during a gathering focused on the Catholic Church’s response to clergy sexual abuse. The event brought together Bishop Douglas J. Lucia of Syracuse, Bishop Mark O’Connell of Albany and Bishop John S. Bonnici of Rochester. Organized by the Central New York group Hope, Healing and Solidarity, it gave church leaders and community members a chance to discuss reforms, the damage caused by abuse and the work of helping survivors heal.
For Bishop O’Connell, the discussion drew on his years as a canon lawyer in the Archdiocese of Boston, where he worked during the period surrounding the Boston Globe’s 2002 Spotlight investigation into the church’s handling of clergy sexual abuse allegations.
“I was in total ignorance, and so was the church,” O’Connell said, reflecting on the institution’s failures.
O’Connell acknowledged the damage caused by the church’s mishandling and criticized the authority bishops have traditionally held.
“Bishops are put on way too big a pedestal,” he said. “This should have knocked us off our pedestal forever.”
O’Connell is scheduled to become chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People in November. At the gathering, he discussed revisions to the church’s child protection charter, which was first adopted in 2002 and updated in June 2026. The charter outlines how the church responds to abuse allegations, cooperates with civil authorities and holds clergy accountable.
The updated charter outlines safeguards intended to prevent abuse and strengthen the church’s response when allegations arise. Those include background checks and vetting for clergy, employees and volunteers, along with updated reporting requirements and more comprehensive procedures for investigating allegations of abuse.
Asked whether the abuse crisis had transformed the church, O’Connell acknowledged that it had brought significant change, but said the work of reform and healing must continue. He emphasized the need for the church to keep striving to do better and consistently meet with survivors.
Bishop Lucia has publicly apologized to survivors on behalf of the Diocese of Syracuse, acknowledging the harm caused by clergy sexual abuse and the church’s failures to address it under previous leadership. In February, as the diocese’s bankruptcy case closed, he again apologized for the harm survivors suffered and the institution’s past failures.
At Thursday’s gathering, Lucia was asked whether he would be willing to publicly address survivors and apologize again. Lucia nodded, saying, “I would have no problem with that.”
The Syracuse gathering followed years of legal and financial reckoning for the Diocese of Syracuse. The diocese filed for bankruptcy protection in June 2020 amid hundreds of claims of sexual abuse. The case closed in 2026 with a court-approved $176.1 million trust for survivors.
Hope, Healing and Solidarity formed in 2023 as a group of Central New Yorkers seeking to educate the public about sexual abuse, support survivors, and help build a safer culture. The coalition operates independently of the Diocese of Syracuse, but many of its members are active catholic parishioners.
Dale Avers, a co-facilitator of the group, helped bring attendees together and foster a welcoming space for survivors, their families, and members of the church to discuss trauma. At the start of the event, Michael Koplinka-Loehr, another co-founder, spoke about the shame, secrecy and silence that have shielded the abuse.
“We wish we didn’t have to be here tonight,” Koplinka-Loehr said. He described the gathering as an opportunity to confront painful realities and speak openly about them.
Matthew Fitzgibbon, a Syracuse survivor of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest when he was young, offered a succinct assessment of the church’s response: “Progress, not perfection.”
For Nancy Rissler, her uncle’s story highlights the need to support survivors who are only now speaking about their abuse, as well as those who have yet to come forward.
