CHICAGO (IL)
Baltimore Sun
By Janice D'Arcy
Sun Staff
Originally published June 17, 2005
CHICAGO - A board set up by U.S. Catholic bishops to examine the church's sexual abuse crisis recommended a sweeping study yesterday to provide a better understanding of why priests abused minors.
Dr. Paul McHugh, a professor and former director of the Johns Hopkins psychiatry department, told the gathering of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops during a closed-door session that the research would take about three years and would include extensive interviews with victims and perpetrators.
"Some bishops will say, 'Why bring this all out and get people angry again?' They wonder if we're making things better by always bringing this up," McHugh said in an interview before the session. "What I'll say to them is that it must be done. In order to go forward, we have to learn from the past."
The agenda for the three-day meeting here was dominated by the abuse scandal.