Press Release

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati has contracted with a criminal background check company to screen all its clerics, employees, and volunteers in order to provide the safest possible environment for the children under its care.

Currently, criminal background checks are conducted by Archdiocesan employees. Effective early next year, SELECTiON.COM®, a national, Catholic faith-based background check company located in the Cincinnati area, will begin providing all background check services for the Archdiocese, said Tom Coz, the Safe Environment Coordinator for Children and Youth.

“While child safety was the primary concern in reviewing our current processes,” Coz said, “we were also able to identify a solution that will be less expensive to our volunteers and our parishes, and less invasive to our volunteers, while at the same time allowing for a more streamlined process for parishes and staff to submit to and view background check results.”

Since January 2013, SELECTiON.COM® has been performing background checks for the Archdiocese using their proprietary criminal database called Search America Plus, in order to compare results with the Archdiocese’s current Ohio BCII (Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigations) and FBI fingerprinting program.

Coz said the benefits of the new process include:

— Volunteers can execute their applications from home without having to drive anywhere to present themselves to a fingerprint station;
—The cost of an electronic database background check for persons who want to volunteer to work with children in the Archdiocese ($25) will be less than in the previous process ($28 for a BCII check plus $30 for an FBI check for a total of $58);

SELECTiON.COM’s operating system, Fastrax, and the VIRTUS© online child protection program will work together, thereby streamlining the process because it will only be necessary to register once for both programs.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati is the 38th largest Catholic diocese in the country, with almost 500,000 Catholics, and has the sixth largest network of Catholic schools in terms of enrollment.  The 19-county territory includes 213 parishes and 113 Catholic primary and secondary schools.