NEW HAMPSHIRE
Nashua Telegraph
By ALBERT McKEON, Telegraph Staff
mckeona@telegraph-nh.com
Published: Wednesday, Mar. 23, 2005
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester must have its sexual abuse policies audited according to the standards of state prosecutors, a judge has ruled.
Hillsborough County Superior Court Judge Carol Ann Conboy’s ruling, handed down Tuesday, most likely breaks a stalemate that prevented church and state from fully enacting an agreement the diocese signed in 2002 to avoid criminal indictments on child endangerment.
Both sides had differing interpretations of the scope of the auditing, and placed their two-year impasse in the hands of the court.
The diocese argued in court that it agreed only to a compliance review, an audit that sees if the church enacted policies to keep children safe from abuse and whether it trains its personnel. But the state attorney general’s office contended that it must gauge the effectiveness of the policies - essentially a performance audit - otherwise prosecutors could not determine if children are protected in the church.
Posted by kshaw at March 23, 2005 07:17 AM