The first national audit of how well Catholic bishops are implementing the church's new national policy on preventing sex abuse by clergy gave the Diocese of Providence high marks yesterday, though lawyers representing some 40 alleged victims who recently came forward said much still had to be done.
The widely anticipated report was drafted at the request of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office of Child and Youth Protection, based on extensive interviews conducted by former FBI agents working for the Gavin Group of Boston.
It commended the Providence Diocese for initiating a "progressive outreach policy" in response to allegations of sexual abuse as early as 1992, and praised Bishop Robert E. Mulvee for his support of a legal settlement with 37 people who had filed sexual-abuse claims during the last decade, and for meeting with the "victim/survivors" individually and collectively.
Lawyers Carl DeLuca and Timothy Conlon said that the Providence Diocese had made great strides during the past two years to heal the wounds that their clients had suffered as a result of misconduct by priests. However, they said they thought the diocese was beginning to retreat "a little bit" in the way it was responding to allegations from their new clients, whose cases date back many years but who came forward during the last couple of years.
At issue is a proposal put together by the diocese's seven-member lay review panel as a recommendation to Bishop Mulvee. The diocese would offer that all those who had lost their right to sue because of the statute of limitations be offered therapeutic counseling for as long as they live, and a sum of $25,000 each or, as an alternative, arbitration that could raise the compensation to as much as $90,000.
Former Attorney General Dennis J. Roberts II, chairman of the lay advisory panel, said he thought the proposal was a "gift" since it would be going to people who no longer have any legal claim. He said that in offering money to such victims, "we have to be mindful that we can't give away the store."
DeLuca said the proposal was inadequate, put forward without any real consideration of his clients' needs or what had happened to them. He said some of his clients had been institutionalized and only recently have had the strength to bring their complaints forward.
"They [the diocese] made a cookie-cutter offer, and it's not fair," he said. "To come to the conclusion as to what's to be done without talking to them about the pain in their lives, short-circuits the whole process."
Yet even the lawyers said yesterday that when it comes to sexual abuse of children, the climate is vastly different from what it once was.
Conlon said he believed nearly all the new complaints involved the same small number of deceased or suspended priests who were identified as abusers in the previous lawsuits. He said there were two or three alleged perpetrators whose names were unfamiliar to the lawyers, but who the lawyers presume to be long gone from the ministry.
In releasing the bishops' report at a news conference yesterday in Washington, Kathleen McChesney, a former top FBI agent who heads the Office of Child and Youth Protection, said more than 90 percent of the nation's 191 dioceses that were visited since last spring were found to be in compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People that was adopted by the nation's bishops in Dallas in June 2002.
While conducting the nationwide audits, the investigators initially found shortcomings in compliance by two-thirds of the dioceses. The Diocese of Fall River, for example, was chastized for not having a a code of conduct for its priests and employees. It was also advised to start a safe-environment training program for children in religious-education programs and diocesan schools.
Fall River officials said yesterday that about 35 percent of the religious-education students have yet to receive any training, but a code of conduct was put into place Dec. 1.
The Boston Archdiocese was praised for its aggressive outreach program, which has included sponsoring a national conference of mental-health professionals to deal with issues related to sex abuse by priests.
McChesney said that while the study was going on, her office and members of the Gavin Group realized that there were also some limitations in the audit itself, which she hopes can be addressed later this year.
Among her key recommendations:
That there also be an "external audit" focusing on conversations with victim/survivors across the country. The most recent audit included interviews with some survivors, but only those who reported abuse since the charter was adopted in Dallas.
That there be a more comprehensive audit of the nation's 18,000 parishes to make sure that the programs and policies put into place at the national and diocesan levels are filtering down to the parishes.
That audits look to improve the quality of outreach, so that dioceses are not simply sitting back to wait for people to come to them, but make a more concerted effort to encourage those who know of sexual abuse, or who believe they have been abused, to come forward.
Ann Hagan Webb, the New England coordinator for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, yesterday lauded all of those recommendations, saying she thought they would go a long way in correcting some of the flaws.
At the same time, Webb said she was "appalled" that the auditors had praised the Diocese of Providence for reaching a settlement with 37 abuse survivors, insisting that diocesan officials agreed to a settlement after 10 years of litigation only because they did not want to open up personnel records to public scrutiny, which would have been required if the lawsuits had gone to trial.
The audit contained two-page summaries of findings on each diocese in the country. Providence came away with four commendations, including praise for settling the lawsuits, initiating a "progressive policy" in response to allegations, for outreach to victims and survivors of abuse by members of a religious order not technically covered by its charter, and its establishment of a team of "highly qualified professionals" to respond to allegations of sexual abuse.
The one "instruction" from the auditors had to do with the failure of diocesan officials to pass on to the lay advisory board an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor.
Both Monsignor Paul Theroux, the diocese's moderator of the Curia, and Roberts, of the advisory board, said all allegations concerning clergy are routinely sent over to the lay panel, and that the one specific incident cited by the auditors was the result of an administrative glitch.
Monsignor Theroux said he had only a hazy memory of the allegation, which came to diocesan officials during the past year, but that it had to do with questionable behavior by a priest. The behavior was open to various interpretations, but did not appear to warrant his removal from the priesthood, the monsignor said. Roberts said he could not recall the exact details of the alleged incident, but said it was more in the nature of "stupid behavior."
Nonetheless, the allegation was passed along to the office of Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, which has not taken any official action.
Monsignor Theroux said that under the policies and procedures now in place, anyone in the diocese who suspects a case of child sexual abuse is required to make the allegation known to him or to Robert McCarthy, the former Massachusetts State Police detective hired by the diocese to investigate complaints. Typically, he said, allegations are forwarded to the police and the attorney general's office within 24 hours.
If the complainant is an adult, he or she is also encouraged to contact the police or the attorney general's office immediately.
The priest said the evidence seems to suggest that the efforts so far are working: all the allegations being brought to the attention of the diocese these days relate to priests who are dead, are long retired, or who have been removed from ministry. No diocesan priest has a child sexual-abuse allegation pending.
Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.
DIGITAL EXTRA: Read the full report by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, including its findings by diocese and state, at:
http://www.usccb.org/ocyp/audit2003/report.htm
