The recent disclosure that Catholic dioceses have concealed instances of child sex abuse and left abusive priests unpunished obscures the reality that most dioceses in the United States have been addressing this problem for years.
A survey of the 178 Roman Catholic dioceses in the United States shows that at least 232 priests have been removed over the past two decades because of sexual misconduct with minors.
Sixty-six dioceses, over half of those responding to the survey by the Post-Dispatch of St. Louis, said their policy is to notify state authorities "immediately" whenever there is an allegation of sex abuse by anyone working at the diocese.
The survey shows that at least four-fifths of the dioceses responding rely on lay committees, not the church hierarchy alone, to assess allegations of sex abuse.
A relatively small number of the dioceses responding declined to release information on numbers of priests removed. That group includes several large dioceses, among them St. Louis, Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta and Denver. Officials at several of these dioceses and others also declined to discuss their policies on review and reporting of allegations, describing them as internal matters. But officials at many other dioceses said they welcomed the opportunity to discuss policies that they say are well-entrenched, aggressive and far more successful than current media accounts might suggest.
A typical response was that of Marianna Thompson, communications director for the diocese of Paterson, N.J. She said the diocese had removed "four or five priests" during the 1980s but none since 1992, when the diocese distributed to all employees tough new rules for reporting suspected abuse. "We tell them their responsibility is to call the Division of Youth and Family Services immediately and to bring in law enforcement," Thompson said. "We do not investigate ourselves," she added. "This is a crime. You have to go to the cops."
The number of priests removed is small compared to the total numbers currently in service: 30,655 in diocesan ministry and 15,386 more in religious orders. The cases of those removed involve sexual misconduct with teen-age boys and girls as well as younger children.
One diocese that mandates reporting of allegations to state authorities is Providence, R.I., where 12 priests have been removed for sexual misconduct over the past 15 years and seven more are currently suspended. Spokesman Bill Halpin said the diocese employs its own full-time investigator -- a retired Massachusetts state police officer -- who reports his findings to authorities.
Twenty-nine states have mandatory reporting laws that cover
priests and churches. In some, like Florida, dioceses also carry out rigorous
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"We have a statewide policy of fingerprinting all employees, priests, members of orders and volunteers," said Kathleen Bagg-Morgan, communications director for the St. Augustine, Fla., diocese. "We go through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for background checks on everyone -- and if someone has moved in from another state we go the state of origin and arrange for background checks there."
In states that exempt clergy from mandatory reporting requirements the policy varies from diocese to diocese.
In Grand Rapids, Mich., the diocese has instructed priests to notify state authorities immediately if abuse is suspected. In New York, it's a matter of discretion for the archbishop, Cardinal Edward Eagan, said spokesman Joseph Swilling. The New York diocese does not forward allegations if victims of the alleged abuse are opposed to doing so, he said.
Some dioceses also make a distinction based on when the alleged abuse occurred. Allegations of current abuse are reported automatically and immediately, but there is an internal review first when the alleged abuse dates from many years earlier.
Bishop Wilton J. Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, says that in his view, the church would be best served by transparency and full disclosure in its handling of sex abuse allegations. Some of the biggest dioceses in the country have declined to follow Gregory's lead, however, when it comes to releasing data on priests who have been disciplined or removed because of sexual conduct.
Among the dioceses that treat such information as confidential and internal are St. Louis, Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, Denver, San Diego and Buffalo, N.Y. Even among dioceses that have released totals on priests who have been removed, there is often opposition to open discussion. Maurice Healy, spokesperson for the San Francisco diocese, said many bishops had been "stunned" by what he called "this tremendous national tsunami of press coverage," which focused on failings in Boston and other dioceses that Healy said were no longer typical of the church as a whole.
"Many feel that all of this is kind of a backwash," he said. "It's true that through the 1980s many bishops were doing things according to what psychologists said at the time -- that abusive priests could be treated, cured and placed back in parish service.
"By the early 1990s things had radically changed. There was a lot of housecleaning, a much greater attempt to keep those priests away from ministries with access to children. So the bishops feel that they've been on an upward trend, working with this issue -- and that the picture projected up on the screen now is a little dated."
Jason Berry, author of the 1992 book "Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children," said the issues facing the church aren't just about cases from long ago.
"The culture of secrecy is what the media is focusing on now," he said. "Regardless of whether these cases happened 10 or 12 years ago, the fact is that these priests have been sent on to other parishes and they should have kicked them out . . . What is really at issue here is the whole structural culture within the priesthood that is riddled with secrecy."