Church explores `hard change': seeking to repair its severely damaged reputation and begin the healing process, the Catholic Church takes steps to implement a nationwide policy on sexual abuse

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 12, 2002 | by Jennifer G. Hickey

The foundation was laid at the June meeting in Dallas of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The 60 million-member Catholic Church in the United States now is moving ahead to repair a reputation damaged by allegations of sexual abuse by its priests and a cover-up by church hierarchy. While a New York grand jury continues to investigate charges of an "orchestrated effort" to protect serial abusers, and plaintiffs' lawyers research ways to hold the church financially accountable--even filing lawsuits under federal racketeering and corruption (RICO) statutes--church officials are putting in place the zero-tolerance policy overwhelmingly adopted in Dallas.

On July 11, Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, announced additional measures to be adopted within his diocese to cope with accusations of abuse, including establishing a Child Protection Advisory Board. The board contains a variety of individuals from respected professions, including a retired judge, a former police captain and a school-board president. Washington's written sexual-abuse policy, in place since 1986 and updated in the intervening years, has been regarded as one of the strictest in the nation.

Change also is being brought to the largest Catholic community in the nation with the announcement by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles that it will establish an independent advisory board on sexual abuse to oversee its child-protection program. The board is to be headed by a retired superior-court judge and will include 11 lay members and two priests. The Diocese of Dallas recently announced it will revisit the makeup of its advisory board, with emphasis on including more representatives of the laity.

The preventive and punitive provisions adopted at the USCCB meeting have introduced the strongest nationwide policy on sexual abuse in the history of the Catholic Church in America, but determining why the crisis occurred and how best to prevent future abuse may be a more important and even more difficult task.

The June USCCB meeting created a National Review Board that will study how each diocese is implementing the reforms adopted by the national leadership and review the role played by the bishops themselves. The new sexual-abuse policy requires every diocese to formulate standards of conduct that cover both church officials and those in its employ.

"Right now what we are doing is sharing with each other resumes for individuals that could be the head of [the National Review Board]. We are looking for, perhaps, an ex-senior military official, ex-senior prosecutor, an ex-senior law-enforcement official," says Oklahoma Republican Gov. Frank Keating, a former prosecutor who is spearheading creation of the board.

Keating says the office will implement the policies of zero tolerance, transparency and criminal referrals contained in the "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People" and then see to it that every diocese does the same with special focus on ensuring the local diocesan boards truly are independent.

"We don't want any lawyers from the diocese or recipients of diocesan aid or assistance serving on local boards because they, more than likely, will have difficulty recommending hard change. And, in fact, hard change is needed," the governor adds. Initially the USCCB president, Bishop Wilton Gregory, had suggested the board include members of the religious community, perhaps even non-Catholics. But Keating tells INSIGHT. "It was our unanimous view that it be small [and] Catholic. The Catholic community should clean up its own act and there should be no members of the religious community."

Although the details of the national board's operation have yet to be settled, the core founding group, Keating says, is working "on an accelerated process" with a clear mandate of bringing change to the nation's largest church with an announcement of board membership scheduled for July 30.

"I have never met Frank Keating but, from following him, he's done a magnificent job, speaking with such clarity and purpose" William Donohue of the New York City-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights tells INSIGHT. "He is not going to be the church's water boy or their lackey.... I think he has the tenacity and the fairness competently to handle these matters."

Robert Bennett, an attorney with the Washington law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and a member of the core group, tells INSIGHT: "There is one real overriding fundamental goal [of the National Review Board] and that is the protection of children and young people. That was recognized by the bishops at their conference and that is recognized in our mandate. Our goal is to protect children and young people and never to let incidents like this occur again. To accomplish that we will be working in tandem with the Office of Child and Youth Protection, which was also created by the bishop's charter."

In addition, the board will prepare a report regarding the causes of the current crisis. Until the full committee is approved, Bennett says, the range of experts remains undetermined. However, he says, he is "very comfortable in saying that we will be communicating with a whole variety of diverse interests which may be helpful to us" in the deliberations of the board.