ROME
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sunday, June 19, 2005
By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
ROME -- Twenty years as a canon and civil lawyer for Catholic institutions did not prepare Nicholas Cafardi for what he encountered as a member and chairman of theAbuse Tracker Review Board charged with overseeing the U.S. bishops' response to accusations of sexual abuse by priests.
"It's been a dark night of the soul," said Cafardi, 56, dean emeritus of the Duquesne University School of Law. He has just completed a three-year term on the board, including a final stint as chairman. Now he is on an academic sabbatical in Rome, where he will do a doctoral thesis on the early but ineffective attempts by U.S. bishops to respond to accusations of child sexual abuse.
He believes the bishops have now taken steps that will all but eliminate molestation, and that any church workers who molest a minor will be removed and reported. The Catholic Church, he believes, has set an example that other helping professions should follow.
On Friday, U.S. bishops, meeting in Chicago, voted to extend that policy, which permanently bars abusive priests from church work, for another five years. The Vatican is expected to approve the extension.
Cafardi says that in his work on the review board, he encountered depths of perversion and pain that were incomprehensible to him. He found pockets of resistance to his work. Even a close friend in the priesthood accused his board of treating priests as the enemy.