Regina Quinn, safe environment director, brings decades of commitment, experience to her role
Throughout her career of safeguarding children and young people — first in the military, then in the Church — Regina Quinn JD has recognized two common reactions to allegations of abuse by an adult.
- “I don’t believe it! I know that person, and I know they’d never do anything like this”; or
- “I’m not surprised. I always thought there was something fishy with that person.”
“The second reaction frustrates me the most of all,” said Ms. Quinn, director of the Jefferson City diocese’s safe environment office.
“The first is a gut-level response,” she stated. “The second says you saw or suspected something but were reluctant to get involved.”
She pointed out that everyone is responsible for keeping children safe in the parishes.
“The bishop sets the polices, my office enforces the policies, but creating and maintaining safe environments is everyone’s responsibility,” she continued.
“Safe environments affect everyone, regardless of what they do anywhere in the diocese,” she said. “So, we all need to be working together as a team.”
Ms. Quinn’s role as diocesan safe environment director is to ensure that everyone in the diocese who works with children is in compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People and the local requirements for implementing it in this diocese.
The Charter, approved by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in 2002, provides consistent, verifiable norms for ensuring that all of the Church’s environments are safe for children and others who are vulnerable.
“If the bishop is a shepherd, then I’m one of the border collies, herding the sheep away from danger and back into the safety of the sheepfold,” said Ms. Quinn.
“I’m nipping at their heels, keeping them away from the wolves and heading them back to safety,” she stated.
She does this in cooperation with fellow Church personnel at the Chancery, including diocesan Chancellor Benjamin Roodhouse JD, JCL and Erin Vader Ed.D., diocesan superintendent of Catholic schools.
“So, I’m one of several ‘border collies,’” said Ms. Quinn. “The chancellor in my previous diocese used to describe us as ‘people outside the balloon, protecting the people inside the balloon.’”
By that, he meant that they were protectors not only of vulnerable people’s safety but also their innocence.
“Most people who work for the Church believe in the inherent goodness of people,” said Ms. Quinn. “And I believe in that, too ... to a point.”
An early adapter
Ms. Quinn accepted the safe environment role in this diocese after performing a similar function for over 15 years for the Diocese of Columbus, Ohio.
She succeeds Fiona Laverty, who late last year accepted a Chancery position with the Archdiocese of Dublin, Ireland.
For Ms. Quinn, the work of safeguarding vulnerable people fits into a lifelong personal relationship with God.
She grew up in a large, devout Catholic family in Ohio and served as a member of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) while studying history and English in college.
She served for 16 years in the Air Force Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps after completing her undergraduate degree and her law degree at The Ohio State University.
“From the beginning, I was involved in investigations and prosecution of allegations of child abuse,” she noted. “So, you could say I was involved in safe environment before safe environment was a thing.”
Dioceses throughout the United States established safe environment offices and programs following the U.S. Catholic bishops’ adoption of the Charter in 2002.
The Charter was the U.S. Church’s response to revelations of decades of sexual abuse of minors by certain members of the clergy, aided by cover-ups by people in authority who should have known better.
An important part of the norms for implementing the Charter is ensuring that everyone who works or volunteers in a Catholic parish or school receives training in child safety protocols and in recognizing and properly reporting signs of possible abuse of children.
The key is to maintain clear protocols for adults who interact with children or young people under the auspices of the Church.
People who persistently fail to observe those protocols would stand out and be barred from working with children or young people in the Church.
“The biggest misconception about this policy is that we are punishing the many for the misconduct of the few,” said Ms. Quinn.
“But by requiring this training, we are not saying that you’re part of the problem; we’re asking you to be part of the solution,” she said.
A soul on fire
Ms. Quinn’s favorite book of the Bible is Isaiah, especially the verses about the Suffering Servant.
Seen as a prefigurement to Christ, the Suffering Servant accepts shame and punishment for other people’s iniquities but in the end is found pleasing to God and lifted up in glory.
Ms. Quinn’s favorite saint is the Blessed Mother.
“I was named after my Mom, and she was named for the Queen of Heaven,” said Ms. Quinn. “So, I have a special devotion to the Queen.”
Ms. Quinn completed her time in the Air Force in 2001 and returned to her home state.
Aware of her skills as an attorney and experience in handling abuse cases, the pastor of her parents’ parish in her hometown asked her to help him implement the Charter there.
She became a passionate advocate for helping her fellow parishioners open their eyes to the possibility of abuse taking place around them — and what they could do to help prevent it.
She also started working on a master’s degree in pastoral studies through the Loyola of New Orleans Institute for Ministry Extension (LIMEX).
One of the courses she took was, “Your Spiritual Journey.”
“So that had me actively thinking about my relationship with God,” she recalled.
“As a cradle Catholic, I had kind of taken my faith for granted. But as I was working on this paper, I made a conscious choice — something to the lines of ‘I’m Catholic because I want to be, not just because my parents are,’” she said.
Ms. Quinn eventually accepted an invitation to serve as safe environment coordinator for the Columbus diocese, helping parishes throughout the entire diocese implement the Charter.
It was satisfying but difficult work. She risked burning out.
Last summer, she stepped away from the Chancery and thought about taking up different work for the next phase of her career.
Ms. Quinn is serving her second term as a consultant for the USCCB’s Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People.
Colleagues at the USCCB’s Secretariat for the Child and Youth Protection told her that Bishop W. Shawn McKnight was looking for a new diocesan safe environment coordinator for the Jefferson City diocese.
Impressed by Bishop McKnight’s demonstrated commitment to promoting healing from the abuse scandal and to keeping children safe, Ms. Quinn submitted her resume.
Bishop McKnight called her to talk and set up a formal interview. She traveled here and spent a day in discussions with him and several of his advisors.
Her experience with safe environment programs from the beginning of implementing the Charter were a strong selling point.
For her part, she was impressed with the team atmosphere in the Chancery — “how they emphasized the importance of working as a team here.
“It shows the commitment of the bishop to providing a safe environment for the most vulnerable members of his flock,” said Ms. Quinn.
Bishop McKnight called to offer her the job the Tuesday after Thanksgiving Day.
She began work here on Jan 3 of this year.
Vigilance and exertion
Ms. Quinn said the most rewarding parts of her work is stopping abuse and preventing it from happening in the first place, and helping people in the pews recognize their own role in those efforts.
She noted that the common stereotype of an abuser is often incorrect.
“It’s usually not the antisocial guy with the trench coat, hiding in the bushes, or the grumpy neighbor who lives in the creepy house at the end of the block,” she said.
“It’s often a person who’s charismatic, engaging and very capable of grooming everyone around them.”
She further noted that people tend to see themselves as the ultimate judge of another person’s character, based on what they know and can see.
“One of the things the safe environment program teaches us is that the abusers groom all of us, in order to get that position of trust, to get that time alone with a victim in order to abuse them,” she said.
Ms. Quinn is confident that an upcoming study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York will demonstrate that efforts to eliminate the abuse of minors by Church personnel in the United States have been overwhelmingly successful.
But, she insists on the need for continued vigilance.
“I worry about ‘Charter fatigue’ — that people, especially the clergy, are just tired of hearing about this,” she said.
“I’m also worried about complacency — the idea that after 23 years, we have all these policies in place and don’t need to pay as much attention to this anymore.
“But the minute we let our guard down, that opens the door back up to abuse,” she stated.
An important thing she learned in the JAG Corps and in the Columbus diocese was the need for constant reevaluation and improvement.
“Acknowledging that we can always improve things, and getting away from the habit of thinking, ‘Wow! We sure dodged that bullet,’ to ‘that was way too close — how can we update our system to keep that from happening again?’
“We can never stop having those discussions,” she said.
Work and pray
Ms. Quinn encourages every Catholic in these 38 counties to read the diocesan policy on the protection of children of young people, “and contact us if they have any questions or concerns.”
The policy can be found on the diocesan website at diojeffcity.org/safe-environment.
She also requested prayers for all victims of abuse. She recommended the USCCB Prayer for Healing for Victims of Abuse, which is published on this page.
