Roman Catholic bishops and members of a lay oversight board emerged from a closed-door session Thursday afternoon saying the church’s reform plan remains on track. Washington, D.C., attorney Robert Bennett, a National Review Board member, told a news conference that three board members and the bishops had a “very honest and very cordial discussion” and that “the overwhelming number fully support the board’s work.”
“If we don't get cooperation, we’ll name names,” he added.
The hierarchy’s president, Bishop Wilton Gregory of Belleville, Ill., said the session helped bishops understand the board’s work.
Tension has been created in recent weeks by the board’s survey of the extent of abuse cases, being conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Refusal by California’s bishops to file questionnaires caused a flareup between Cardinal Roger Mahony and review board chairman Frank Keating and led in part, to Keating’s Monday resignation. Keating quit after likening some secretive bishops to the Mafia in a Los Angeles Times interview.
But lawyers for the California bishops and John Jay staffers worked out a compromise, announced Thursday.
Review board member Paul McHugh, former psychiatry director at Johns Hopkins University, said the bishops’ lawyers were worried about complying with California law on confidentiality and employee rights.
The solution, he said, was providing coded information to John Jay that met the needs of the survey.
Kathleen McChesney, director of the Office of Child and Youth Protection on the bishops’ staff, emerged from the session to say she and the board believe “the issues raised thus far have been sufficiently addressed and everyone is moving forward.”
Once the questionnaires are filed, the next big project is an audit of all 195 dioceses by McChesney’s office on whether they are complying with reforms the national hierarchy approved a year ago. The review board said 135 of the nation’s 195 dioceses have already sent reports.
‘What we promised ... we've done'
Earlier in the day Cardinal Francis George of Chicago said “what we promised to do a year ago, we’ve done,” referring to reforms the bishops approved in June 2002.
The bishops promised to remove all abusers from the priesthood or from active ministry. “That’s been done,” George said.
Advocacy groups for victims and lay Catholics disagree, and made their case outside the bishops’ assembly. Last year, victims got the chance to address the bishops, but this year they are not on the agenda.
Voice of the Faithful, which wants a greater role for the laity in the church, called on bishops in every diocese to release all personnel records related to credible abuse accusations. George responded that the bishops’ reform platform doesn’t require that.
“We are furious that these revelations of abuse have taken so many years to be disclosed and dealt with by our bishop,” said Sandy Simonson, a Voice member from Phoenix. She was referring to a deal that Bishop Thomas O’Brien of Phoenix struck with a prosecutor earlier this month in which — to avoid indictment — he admitted sheltering priests accused of molestation.
Hopes for normalcy dashed
U.S. bishops had hoped their session would mark a return to the routine after 18 tumultuous months of clerical sex-abuse scandals. Instead, the credibility of church leaders is under intense scrutiny again.
O’Brien resigned Wednesday in the wake of his arrest on a charge of leaving the scene of a fatal hit-and-run accident. It’s probably the most serious criminal case ever filed against a U.S. Roman Catholic bishop.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has no official role in individual members’ problems. But bishops are aware that just two weeks ago prosecutors announced a deal that spared O’Brien another criminal indictment, for protecting priests accused of child molesting.
O’Brien’s troubles could be especially unnerving for bishops because they follow other recent embarrassments among colleagues, such as the resignation of Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law, since the hierarchy last gathered.
‘Their own worst enemy’
The bishops “wanted to come to St. Louis showing they have regained their bearings,” but these developments demonstrate the opposite, said journalist David Gibson, whose book “The Coming Catholic Church” will be published in July.
“Every time they try to get back on track, they find themselves diverted,” said Gibson, a Catholic convert. “They are their own worst enemy.” Yet under the church’s government system, “the bishops have to lead us out of this crisis, if it’s going to happen,” he said.
As the bishops confer, their critics are nearby. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests gave the bishops a “D” grade for efforts the past year and called for Keating’s successor to be another person with experience as a prosecutor. SNAP holds its first national assembly in St. Louis from Friday through Sunday.
Monsignor Francis Maniscalco, spokesman for the bishops conference, disputed SNAP’s assessment. He said the bishops’ willingness to let independent observers judge their deeds proves the church’s leaders are sincere.
Another advocacy group, Survivors First, announced an updated Internet listing that names 1,608 priests accused of molesting. The group says eight of them remain in ministry. It also launched www.bishop-accountability.org — a Web site collecting documents about abuse.
Call to Action, an older and more liberal lay group, also has leaders in town. And the St. Louis-based Catholic Action Network scheduled a protest vigil demanding inclusion of women in the priesthood.
The bishops meet through Saturday noon.
Other developments
In New York City, the trial of a Roman Catholic priest accused of raping a woman in a church ended Wednesday with a deadlocked jury. A judge declared a mistrial after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict in the case against Cyriacus Udegbulem. Jurors had deliberated for a week. A new trial was set for July 28.
He was arrested last June on charges that he raped and sodomized a woman at a Brooklyn church he was visiting. His alleged victim testified that she had visited the priest in the rectory of Our Lady of Charity church in early 2000 to get his advice on annulling an abusive marriage. The defense argued the sex was consensual.
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