Having weathered the tumultuous resignation of its leader
last month, the lay National Review Board created a year ago to monitor U.S. Roman
Catholic bishops on the issue of sexual abuse will meet in Chicago this week to
assess the pace and progress of the church's reforms.
The board, led by Illinois Appellate Judge Anne Burke, will hold a press
conference Tuesday at which members are expected to discuss studies now being
conducted on the scope and causes of abuse by clergy and an ongoing audit of
reform efforts by the nation's 195 dioceses.
Abuse survivors and
church officials say they are adopting a wait-and-see approach toward the board's
assessment. But because the results of the studies and audit--and
recommendations for the bishops--are not expected until at least this fall,
some observers are questioning the efficacy and pace of reform efforts.
"So far, the jury's out. We've seen very little concrete change yet,"
said Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by
Priests. "But we take [the board] at their word when they say no stone
will be left unturned in their research."
Special scrutiny will fall on the progress of a study by the John Jay College
of Criminal Justice that intends to list every abuse case in the nation since
1950. Last week, the Massachusetts attorney general announced that his office
found at least 237 priests who were accused of molesting almost 800 minors over
six decades in the Boston archdiocese alone.
"I can't imagine that every diocese has that kind of abuse, but you really
can't speculate," Burke said. "That's why we've [commissioned] the
best possible studies to be professionally done."
The studies and the audit appear to be proceeding without hindrance and at a
reasonable pace, Burke added.
"It's not glitzy; it's methodical, precise, and our point is to make sure
that environments are safe for children," she said.
The audit will determine how fully each diocese has enacted the safeguards
agreed to by bishops last year at their meeting in Dallas. Burke said 22 teams
of former FBI agents have audited 34 dioceses since the first week of July.
Auditors completed their review of the Chicago archdiocese on Friday, but their
findings will remain private until the nationwide audit wraps up late this
year, said James Dwyer, spokesman for the archdiocese.
Relations between bishops and the board were strained last month by the
departure of former board chair Frank Keating, who quit June 16 after a public
dispute with Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony. The former Oklahoma governor
had said bishops were acting like the Mafia to "deny, to obfuscate, to
explain away" information.
In addition, California bishops had balked at answering certain questions on
the John Jay College survey because of strict state confidentiality laws. The
dispute was addressed at the bishops' annual meeting last month in St. Louis,
and Burke said bishops are now cooperating.
No acrimony over Keating's departure has lingered, she said , noting that
Chicago's Cardinal Francis George will have lunch with board members Monday.
Following the terms of the charter signed in Dallas last year, bishops have
begun to establish diocesan review boards, composed of laity and clergy, to
review sexual abuse complaints and make recommendations to local bishops.
Tribunals, now being set up, will try accused priests.
Bishops also have mandated abuse-awareness training for all church employees
and volunteers who come into contact with children and asked for background
checks on employees.
But organizations like SNAP say very few of these changes have been enacted
yet. While acknowledging that studies take time, they want the national board
to publicly push the bishops to step up the pace of reforms--to put the
tribunals in place faster, for example.
SNAP recently pointed to Bishop Paul Bootkoski of the Metuchen Diocese in New
Jersey as a model who has reached out to victims and set up a local review
board in his diocese that includes abuse survivors. Blaine said the national
board should publicly support bishops who are enacting reforms and castigate
those who are not.
That's just what the audit will reveal when it is published, Burke said.
"In the long run we can't make [bishops cooperate], but our report will
reveal who hasn't cooperated ... then they're going to have to answer to their
brother bishops and their laypeople, not to us," Burke said.
But some Catholic groups want the board to publish preliminary findings now.
"They have to really bend over backward to be independent and open with
the public," said Luise Dittrich, national spokesperson for Voice of the
Faithful, a lay group based in the Northeast that came to prominence during the
scandals in Boston in 2002. "It only does further harm to keep findings
private."
In an effort to stay connected with the public, the board has invited the
presidents of SNAP and Link-Up, another victims' group, to meet with board
members Tuesday, Burke said.
Burke also said the results of the John Jay study on the scope of abuses and
the preliminary research into the causes of abuses will be published by early
next year.
The board then will use the research as the foundation for a final, comprehensive
study of sexual abuse by the clergy, its causes and how to prevent it, which
Burke estimated may take several years to complete.
"Yes, this is exactly what we want, in theory," Dittrich said.
"But the proof is in the pudding, and we just have to see how the
performance goes--who ends up telling the truth and who ends up learning the
truth."
Until then, she said, all sides will play more wait-and-see.