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	Catholic Leader Doesn't Sugarcoat Church's Sex Abuses By Denise Zoldan Naples Daily News [Florida] March 30, 2007 http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2007/mar/30/catholic_leader_doesnt_sugarcoat_churchs_sex_abuse/ The head of a powerful panel of lay people chosen by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to oversee the protection of children in the church delivered some straight talk in Naples on Thursday. Patricia O'Donnell Ewers detailed how far the church has come and how far it still needs to go since the child sex abuse scandal of five years ago. "A lot of people express outrage but not a lot are willing to do the hard work — send letters, serve on a parish safe environment committee and go back to your own parish and ask questions," O'Donnell Ewers told an audience of about 60 at St. John the Evangelist Church in North Naples. "Until we have the parishioners auditing, we have no real security over the effectiveness of what we are doing." She is chairwoman of the 13-member USCCB's National Review Board, which has undertaken massive efforts to ensure further abuse is stopped. The panel reports directly to a committee of 20 bishops, who O'Donnell Ewers says has been supportive of every recommendation the board has made. "Not one recommendation that has come out of the National Review Board has not been endorsed by the bishops committee," she said. The board has developed the "Report on the Crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States," commissioned research for a study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice called "The Nature and Scope of the Problem of the Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States." The board has reviewed and approved the "Report on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People," by the Office of Child and Youth Protection. The charter calls for each diocese to have a victim coordinator and educational programs to teach the children of the danger signals of sex abusers. Of the 300 dioceses across the United States, only three have chosen not to participate, Ewers said. O'Donnell Ewers, a former chief academic officer at DePaul University and former president of New York City's Pace University, told the audience that 5.76 million children have been educated on sex abuse. Parents need to be taught as well, she added. She said she has seen changes in the bishops and priests in the past few years. "One of the most interesting changes I have seen is bishops and cardinals becoming aware of the damage done to the victims and families. They are meeting with them and they come back saying, 'I thought I was dealing with a victim and then I meet their family and found out how widespread the damage is,' "O'Donnell Ewers said. "It's an awareness that was not there five years ago," she said. The first sections of the "Nature and Scope" study found that 4 percent of priests were the abusers. And Ewers emphasized that child sex abuse is not just a Catholic issue. "Eighty percent of sex abuse of a child occurs within the context of family and family friends," she said. The study found that of 4,392 priests, 154 of them — or 3.5 percent — were responsible for sexual assaults on 2,778 children. "They are not only criminals but extremely clever criminals," she said. "They are cunning in a way that makes it extremely difficult to weed them out." Ewers said some of the most difficult hurdles for the church to deal with are the false accusations against priests. The charter calls for every allegation to immediately involve law enforcement. Five years ago, nine out of 10 allegations were found credible, but today only four out of 10 are found. But issues occur when the statute of limitations runs out and law enforcement has no role to play. And what happens when a priest has been removed from ministry. "Where does he go? What does he do?" she asked. Judy Malueg, 69, who is visiting Naples from Wisconsin, was impressed with O'Donnell Ewers' take on things. "She was very truthful. She didn't try to sugarcoat it."
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