Bishops adopt new sexual abuse audits

A survivors group says it’s too early for the new self-reporting plan.

By Jim Remsen

The Philadelphia Inquirer

WASHINGTON — America’s Roman Catholic bishops decided Wednesday to scale back their method of sex-abuse compliance audits, replacing the independent field investigators that have visited dioceses for the last two years with a self-reporting system in which dioceses fill out questionnaires.

The system, which will take effect next year, was presented by a bishops’ committee as one of several “tweaks and fine-tunings” in the start up of the child-protection charter adopted in 2002. But advocates for abuse victims criticized the move.

The bishops, gathered for their semiannual meeting in Washington, adopted the proposal easily, along with another plan to have dioceses submit annual reports on new abuse cases for a running tally on the scope of the sex abuse crisis.

In a flurry of action on the final day of their conference, the bishops also received — but did not debate — a much-awaited report from a special task force reviewing their role in U.S. politics. The author, Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, counseled against denying communion to abortion-rights politicians, a stance that has earned scorn from church conservatives.

The child-protection plan is undergoing an internal review and might be revised when it faces a vote on its renewal next June. For now, the bishops’ sex-abuse committee sought action only on the data-collection and audit measures.

All but the handful of dioceses that failed to carry out “safe environment” training programs and background checks as required by the charter will be able to use the self-reporting audits.

“These audits were a lot of work,” said Archbishop Michael Sheehan of Santa Fe, voicing majority sentiment.

“I’m grateful ... for a simplified procedure that will be much easier to fulfill.”

Bishop Richard Malone, of Portland, Maine, added a caution.

“I don’t believe in every case we have enough distance from the crisis to be confident that our credibility is adequately restored for self-reporting to be accepted as trustworthy, at least generally,” Malone said.

The Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of the Jesuit magazine America and an expert on the bishops’ conference, said the self-reporting measure is sensible. “If you got an A-plus on your last audit, why do you need to be visited again?”

Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, assailed the bishops’ decision.

“A self-audit is a contradiction in terms,” Blaine said as she stood with other protesters outside the convention hotel. “And it’s far too early for the bishops to claim they are ready for self-reporting, considering their track record in this scandal.”

Bishop Blase Cupich of Rapid City, S.D., speaking for the sex-abuse committee, told the bishops audit teams are completing their second round of field audits now, with a report on their findings due in February.

It will show, he said, more than 2.3 million children have had abuse-protection training and that most of the nation’s priests have received the training and background checks.

The panel also is recommending that the “zero tolerance” rule, which bans any church work for abusive clergy, be retained despite criticism that it denies priests due process. Victims and lay activists had been worried bishops would scuttle the provision.

Camden, N.J., Bishop Joseph Galante, who championed zero tolerance as a member of the sex abuse committee in 2002, lauded the call to keep it intact.

“It’s just wrong to place those people back in ministry,” Galante said. “My focus is the victim. Their trust has been shattered.”

The McCarrick report on politics followed a debate in the national church about whether bishops should deny communion to abortion-rights politicians — chief among them former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

McCarrick, a moderate who has been under fire from church conservatives, wrote that bishops “can come to different prudential and pastoral judgments on how to apply our teaching to public policy.”

McCarrick said he doubted the conservative bishops who spoke against Kerry during the presidential campaign had an effect on the election outcome.

“The vast majority of the bishops are in the center, and the center is holding,” McCarrick said. “Those who teach clearly and are moved by the facts know you don’t want to have a confrontation at the altar rail. ... You don’t know what’s in a person’s heart, so you hesitate to impose a penalty.”

D’Arcy supports change in audits
Dioceses’ self-reporting of sexual abuse by clergy will work, bishop says.
By Kevin Kilbane
kkilbane@news-sentinel.com

Simplifying the reporting process for sex-abuse audits at U.S. Catholic churches makes sense, especially for this diocese and others that have not had abuse problems, local Bishop John M. D’Arcy said.

U.S. Catholic bishops voted Wednesday at their fall meeting in Washington, D.C., to switch to a less demanding, self-reporting audit process in future years.

D’Arcy, clergy leader of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, supported the change during discussions at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops meeting, which ended Thursday. D’Arcy returned to Indiana late Wednesday, however, to celebrate the funeral Mass today in South Bend for the father of a priest there.

The audit conducted this year, on which the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend received a good report, was very demanding in the gathering and filing of paperwork, D’Arcy said. While the audit was worthwhile, the self-reporting process should work well in the future.

In a child-protection charter approved in 2002, U.S. Catholic bishops required annual audits of every U.S. Catholic diocese as a means of tracking and preventing sexual abuse by clergy, church staff and volunteers.

At the meeting, victims and lay people said they saw evidence bishops were committed to the reforms, although lay advocates cautioned more changes were needed. As a result, bishops voted Wednesday to authorize a third round of audits of every U.S. diocese to determine whether they put in place mandatory safeguards for children and discipline plans for guilty priests.

The abuse problem probably won’t be resolved, however, D’Arcy said, until Catholic bishops address an issue that was not put on their agenda — revising the guidelines for accepting and preparing candidates for the priesthood.

In the past, U.S. Catholic bishops have reviewed and revised the guidelines every five years, D’Arcy said. The guidelines were due for revision a year ago, but that discussion has been put off at least until the bishops’ meeting this June in Chicago.

“We have had preliminary drafts, and we all have made comments on those,” said D’Arcy, who has spoken frequently of the need for better screening of candidates for the priesthood.

Formally revising the guidelines has been delayed by efforts to deal with the sexual-abuse scandal, which erupted in 2001, D’Arcy said. U.S. bishops also are waiting for the Catholic Church hierarchy in Rome to complete inspections of U.S. seminaries.

When U.S. bishops do meet to revise the guidelines for accepting and preparing men for the priesthood, it will be an important debate, D’Arcy said.

The bishops also approved collecting data on new abuse claims, litigation and related costs, as a follow-up to their unprecedented statistical accounting on 50 years of abuse cases nationwide that was released earlier this year.

They have hired the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which conducted that research, to manage another study — examining why priests abused children. The report is to be released in October.