Bishops Told Of National Sex Abuse Response Plans

By JERRY FILTEAU, CNS

Published: November 20, 2003

WASHINGTON (CNS)—Major national studies on the crisis of clergy sexual abuse of minors and the U.S. bishops’ response to it will be released next January and February, members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops learned Nov. 11.

Justice Anne Burke, interim chair of the National Review Board monitoring diocesan compliance with the bishops’ program to protect children and respond to clergy sexual abuse, told the bishops that the board plans to release two major studies Feb. 27 at a press conference in Washington.

They are the national study on the extent of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests and deacons since 1950 by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and the board’s consensus report on interviews with bishops, priests-abusers, victims and a wide array of professionals regarding the “causes and context” of the abuse crisis, she said.

Burke, a justice of the Appellate Court of Illinois, has headed the all-lay National Review Board since the resignation last June of its chairman, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating.

William Burleigh, a review board member and veteran communications professional with the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, told the bishops that nearly two months before the release of the two studies the board intends to release on Jan. 6 the first annual audit of dioceses. The audit will measure diocesan compliance or failure to comply with the mandates of the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”

The charter, adopted by the bishops in June 2002, established the review board and the policies and procedures all dioceses must meet to assure that minors are protected from sexual abuse in church environments and that allegations of abuse are dealt with promptly and adequately.

William Gavin, a former FBI official and head of the Boston-based Gavin Group commissioned to audit compliance of all U.S. dioceses with the mandates of the bishops’ charter, commended the bishops for their cooperation with his audit teams as they traveled the country in the past six months to investigate how well or poorly each diocese is meeting the charter mandates.

“It was difficult,” he said. “Difficult for the clergy, as it was really the first time that the laity has had such in-depth access to the problem of sexual abuse of minors within each diocese. It was difficult for the auditors, as they worked very hard to uphold the principles of a valid audit and remain sensitive to the concerns of the victims and the clergy.”

He said the audits, which typically lasted a week, required “comprehensive documentation” of what each diocese is doing to respond to allegations of sexual abuse, along with interviews with the local bishop, “diocesan personnel, victims, abusers, prosecutors and (diocesan) review board members.”

Each diocesan audit ended with instructions if a diocese was found not in compliance with a charter mandate, recommendations if compliance with some segment of a mandate was deemed lacking, or commendations if the diocese “was determined to have addressed issues prior to the charter or had taken actions above the demands of the charter,” Gavin said.

Gavin also reported that the diocesan audits had come in “under budget,” with an average cost of $2,200 per auditor per audit, not counting travel costs.

Burke told the bishops that the National Review Board’s interviews with a wide range of church officials, abuse victims and perpetrators, professionals in various fields and others represented a “pro bono” contribution of at least $500,000 by the law firm of board member Robert Bennett.

Archbishop Harry J. Flynn of St. Paul-Minneapolis, chairman of the bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse, urged bishops to participate in a process to develop candidates for replacement of the current members of the National Review Board, saying his committee and the board will soon offer suggestions for qualifications of future replacements of current members of the board.

At a press conference following the session, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of Belleville, Ill., USCCB president, defended a recent comment in an interview with the Boston Globe daily newspaper in which he said the bishops have “turned the corner” on the sexual abuse issue.

He cited the progress the bishops have made in the past two years in removing priests from ministry who have sexually abused children, reaching out to victims for reconciliation, and taking other actions that signal a new seriousness about dealing with the problem.

“Turning the corner does not mean crossing the finish line,” he said.

The U.S. church still has a long way to go to complete the job of protecting children and reaching out to victims of clerical sexual abuse of minors, but “we certainly have made significant progress” along that path, he said.