Diocese of Palm Beach Bishop James Murtagh said Thursday the
diocese will do a better job of implementing its own policies on screening
priests, but there's no need to change or strengthen the policies.
Speaking at his first news conference since taking the reins a month ago,
Murtagh said the church shouldn't ignore the issue of sexual abuse -- which led
his predecessor to resign and continues to roil the church locally and
elsewhere.
"You can't pretend it didn't happen," said
Murtagh, who leads a five-county diocese that serves 225,000 Catholics.
"You must admit it, embrace it. Use [it] as an opportunity to
educate."
He said he might empanel a "blue ribbon committee" of lay people to
monitor the diocese during the crisis.
And, in answer to one parishioner's public demand, he said
that no, he wouldn't resign as temporary bishop.
Abandoning his usual posture of staying above the fray, Murtagh stepped into
the media's glare to field questions for more than a half hour at the diocese
headquarters in Palm Beach Gardens.
He said he has been warmed by the support of the Catholic faithful, whose
donations have increased at some parishes, and who routinely stop him on parish
visits and tell him he's doing a great job.
Edward Ricci, a prominent Catholic benefactor, is not among them. He has called
for Murtagh's resignation, and sent strongly worded letters Wednesday to
Murtagh and to the pope's representative in Washington, asking that Murtagh
quit or be forced to resign.
Ricci assails Murtagh for his public support of disgraced Bishop Anthony J.
O'Connell, who resigned March 8. Three former seminarians have accused
O'Connell of molesting them decades ago.
Ricci also asserts that while Murtagh was chancellor of the diocese, he helped
decide to reinstate a priest, the Rev. Frank Flynn, who had seduced or tried to
seduce several women. This 1990 case, Ricci wrote, shows how Murtagh's
"interests have been more to protect sex-offender priests than to protect
the innocent faithful."
Murtagh's reply: He won't quit and was "mystified" by Ricci's attack.
He said that Ricci, as the women's attorney, was just as privy to facts in the
case as church officials. Why didn't he act? Murtagh asked.
"In my 36 years [as a priest], this is the first time ever my integrity
has been questioned by a person who doesn't even know me personally,"
Murtagh said.
He added: "In ordinary times, I would not respond to Mr. Ricci. But these
are not ordinary times."
Ricci retorted: "He just doesn't get it. This is not about me. I have no
personal agenda. This is about protecting the innocent ... this is about a
clear failure of leadership ...
"He exhibits an astonishing ignorance of sexual exploitation by persons in
positions of authority and fiduciary responsibility."
These are indeed extraordinary times for the diocese. Though free of any cases
of sexual abuse of minors, the diocese, like others around the country, remains
under a cloud.
Although a growing number of dioceses are turning over personnel files to local
district attorneys -- including Boston, New York, Rockville Centre on Long
Island -- Murtagh sees no need to do that here.
He's combed through files on the diocese's 115 or so priests, including those
visiting or transferred from other places, and found no evidence of sexual
involvement with minors either here or earlier in their careers, he said.
He said, as he has before, that the diocese has settled "several"
sexual misconduct cases involving women over the years, but those cases
involved "consensual sexual relations that had gone sour," and were
not illegal.
The unfolding scandal has led to discoveries that a handful of priests working
in the diocese or the seminary had sexually abused minors in the past, in other
parts of the country. Murtagh said that indicates not a systemic problem, but a
need to be "more aggressive" in implementing the policies it has on
the books.
He said he sees no need to change current policies.
"Sometimes [a policy is] not enforced as well as it should. That's a
problem in society, that's life, that's human nature, that's how we are,"
he said. "We're all human beings. Even priests."