April 8, 2026
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
NEW: Fingerprinting Vendor Webinar Recording
Thank you to those of you who attended the Fingerprinting Vendor Webinar on Monday, April 27. For those of you who could not attend, please feel free to watch here
For those of you who plan to move forward and purchase a machine, please fill out this form.
Fingerprinting Updates
The Office of Safe Environments and Compliance is working diligently towards rolling out our Background Check Policy that will include the updated Criminal Convictions Policy combined with our new fingerprinting policy. Please know that this will be coming out soon along with updates on timelines for fingerprinting certain categories of individuals and other fun website updates as well. Currently, we are only fingerprinting clerics and employees of the Archdiocese of Detroit. If you would like to have us come out and fingerprint your employees, please email me at pierson.maegan@aod.org. Due to some logistics and the number of people we can roll, we are currently slated to begin booking in July of 2026.
USCCB Audit Webinar
** RECORDING FROM 1/21 HERE
2026 USCCB Audit
The 2026 USCCB Audit Tool is LIVE. Please read through the information below to make sure your parish and/or school are set up for success:
- Please complete the audit form and return it no later than June 1, 2026 at 5pm. All parishes and schools who submit after June 1, 2026, will be considered non-compliant.
- If your parish and school are separate entities in Virtus, please submit one form for each entity.
- The Safe Environment Office of the Archdiocese of Detroit will report the numbers for priests, deacons, and seminarians.
- For the 2026 audit, fingerprinting is required only for educators and employees of a school entity.
- Please review our policies for training and screening for the Office of Safe Environments HERE
We will only accept numbers from your C/D compliance Chart in VIRTUS this year. Your VIRTUS database must reflect the current spreadsheet you are holding for compliance. Please note: It is important that you upload the most recent BGC date you ran for an individual into VIRTUS.
Access the Audit Form HERE
If you need to schedule a time to meet with Maegan Pierson, Safe Environments Manager, about any of your compliance needs, please do so HERE
Thank you all for your endless patience and care towards upholding the safety of children and vulnerable adults. Each one of you has done incredible work, and we look forward to continuing to make a difference in our parishes and schools.
NEW: ICHAT Report
I have been in conversation with many of you about going back and placing dates in VIRTUS for background checks and wanted to bring to your attention that you are able to run an ICHAT report from the MSP. This report gives you the ability to review who you have ran background checks on over the last fiscal year. Please read more here: How to print the ICHAT Report.
Bulletin Communication
There have been some questions about how to best inform our volunteers about the AOD requirements for Protecting God’s Children. I impart to you the gift of an updated bulletin communication. If some of you have bulletin communications, you have found to be helpful in your parish or school, please email them to pierson.maegan@aod.org
Merging Locations in VIRTUS
If you would like your parish and school to be one entity in VIRTUS or there are a number of parishes that submit as one entity for the USCCB Audit, please email Maegan at pierson.maegan@aod.org and we are more than happy to help you make this happen 😊
