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	Stopping Abuse before It Starts Church Workshop Focuses on Protecting Youngsters By Jeff Trently The Times [Trenton NJ] March 25, 2007 http://www.nj.com/news/times/index.ssf?/base/news-2/117479555384110.xml&coll=5 Trenton — Paul Ashton knows the awful truth. He knows about priests who lied, priests who abused children, priests who got away with it for years. And he knows the new truth. No more lies. No more looking the other way. No more fear. "We were supposed to protect kids and we didn't," Ashton told a group of area Catholics last week who have made it their mission to change all that. "This is not going to happen again because of you." Ashton is a psychologist who specializes in child sexual abuse prevention and healing. He spoke Friday to diocesan Catholics as part of "Protecting God's Children," a church-run workshop teaching adults to recognize the warning signs of child sex abuse and how to respond appropriately. "We're watching everybody who works with our kids because we didn't do this before -- we trusted everybody. Those days are over," Ashton said. Almost 2 percent of priests in the Diocese of Trenton were accused of sexual misconduct involving minors from 1950 through 2002. The diocese paid out almost $1 million in settlements and counseling fees in the past half-century. Today, five years after a national sex-abuse scandal battered the church and shook the faithful, there is a new resolve among many priests and Catholics to make sure nothing like it ever happens again. "People were angry, definitely. People were angry at the cover- up," said Anne Marie Calderone of St. Paul's parish in Princeton. "But I really believe the truth came out. You can't hide from the truth." Calderone runs workshops teaching parishioners how to create safe environments for children in parishes and schools. The work has changed her, she said. "I never would have gone on a sex offender Web site before. I go on them all the time now," she said. At the meeting Friday night of church officials and workshop leaders at the diocese's Pastoral Center, prayers mixed equally with videos of child sex abusers detailing their methods. "We're talking openly about things we never talked about be fore," Ashton said. Bishop John M. Smith was scheduled to speak to the volunteers but sent his representative, Msgr. Gregory Vaughan, the vicar general, instead. Vaughan is the diocesan response officer who hears any complaints about priest sex abuse and turns the information over to civil authorities. When the national sex scandal broke five years ago in Boston, it shook him, Vaughan said. "There was a certain amount of embarrassment in the sense of people looking at you and wondering. We all got labeled," he said. The labels were hard to shake. But in the height of the scandal, Vaughan never lost hope. "People would approach us and say, 'Father, hold your head high. Don't let this destroy you.' People knew it was much broader than the priesthood," he said. For many Catholics, the hurt was too much. "It became more upsetting be cause it's a position of trust," said Debbie Armitage of Barnegat. "When you have a position of trust it's so much more of a betrayal than if it was a janitor at a school." Armitage, an ex-police officer, has trained close to 400 people to recognize signs of child sexual abuse. She believes the church has turned itself around after the scandal. "I kind of equate it to Tylenol," she said. "After people were poisoned by Tylenol, Tylenol was the first to come out with safety bottles. Now the Catholic Church is in the forefront of making people aware." The diocese requires adults who have regular contact with children to undergo a criminal background check and to complete the safe environment workshop. They've conducted background checks on more than 17,000 clergy and laity who work as parish staff and volunteers, and have introduced a program teaching Catholic school children and children in religious education programs about staying safe from would-be abusers, said Rayanne Bennett, a spokeswoman for the diocese. About 13,000 people have taken the safe environment workshops since they began in 2003, Bennett said. "We're calling one another to higher standards," said Msgr. Jo seph Rosie, secretary to the bishop. "There's a positive side that came out of a hurtful and terrible and awful situation there's no excuse for." But for some victims of priest sex abuse, nothing the Catholic Church can do may ever be enough. "They just want to make sure this isn't going to happen to anybody else," Rosie said. Contact Jeff Trently at jtrently@njtimes.com.
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