San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Report finds flaws in church’s sex-abuse prevention plans.
NEWYORK — Child-protection policies adopted by Roman Catholic leaders to curb clergy sex abuse in the United States are inconsistent and often incomplete, according to a think tank's twoyear investigation encompassing all 32 of the country's archdioceses.
The analysis by Philadelphiabased CHILD USA said the inconsistencies and gaps suggest a need for more detailed mandatory standards for addressing sexual abuse of children by priests and other church personnel, a problem that has beset the church for decades and resulted in many criminal investigations, thousands of lawsuits and bankruptcy filings by numerous dioceses.
After a big wave of clergy abuse was reported in the early 2000s, U.S. bishops in 2002 created the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, more commonly known as the Dallas Charter, a baseline for reporting, training and prevention policies on sexual abuse.
“Unfortunately, the Catholic Church has left the development and implementation of policies to the discretion of each local diocese and archdiocese,” CHILD USA said. “As a result, there is now a hodgepodge of relatively new child protection practices across the U.S.”
In a response provided to The Associated Press, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops defended its anti-abuse efforts, which church officials say have helped reduce abuse allegations since 2002 to numbers far lower than several decades ago.
The conference noted that under church law, each local bishop is responsible for implementing the policies outlined in theDallas Charter, resulting in variations across the U.S.
“States and local civil jurisdictions may have different reporting requirements and dioceses may have different population needs,” the statement said. “Thus, a ‘one-size-fits-all' approach is less effective than principles that can be applied and adapted locally.”
“We have made much progress but knowthe painful experience of survivors calls us to continual improvement,” it said.
But CHILD USA founder and CEOMarciHamilton said the prevention effort will remain flawed as long as individual bishops remain in charge of implementation without more forceful independent oversight.
“They have a long way to go,” she said. “The policies are still not adequate.”
Under Hamilton's leadership, CHILD USA has been a strong advocate for tougher child protection policies and has pushed for changes in statute of limitation laws so victims of long-ago child sex abuse could sue institutions such as the Catholic church and Boy Scouts of America.
Among themajor areas of concern in the new CHILD USA report are the archdioceses' procedures for investigating sex abuse allegations.
The report found only five archdioceses have policies allowing for an independent investigator to take charge of a probe. In most archdioceses, it said, the lead investigator is someone with a high-level church role, such as the archbishop, the vicar general for clergy or the legal counsel.
“These officials have blatant conflicts of interest that call into question their ability to conduct an impartial investigation,” the report said. “In addition, they do not have the education and experience necessary for investigating child sexual abuse allegations.“
Other areas of concern outlined in the report included: Inadequate background screening, which does not require checks of sex-offender registries; codes of conduct that did not go far enough in outlining inappropriate physical contact, such as grooming techniques commonly used by molesters; lack of written policies for monitoring priestswho have committed misconduct and are considered a risk to minors; and inadequate protections for whistleblowers. Only five archdioceses have policies in place to protect personnel from retaliation for reporting suspicions of sexual misconduct or other illegal or inappropriate behavior, the report said.
Even so, there is evidence the U.S. church has cut down on the level of sex abuse since 2002.
There have been fewer than 300 allegations of clerical sex abuse of minors since 2005, compared with more than 11,500 such allegations in the 1970s and 1980s, according to Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, an authoritative source for statistics on Catholicism in the U.S.