BishopAccountability.org
	Bishop's Improvements Don't Absolve Ongoing Problems Yakima Herald-Republic April 7, 2008 http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2977 There was one aspect of the most recent scandal within the local Catholic diocese that was most troubling: There was no doubt that Bishop Carlos Sevilla hired a man he knew faced child pornography charges of some nature, and yet Sevilla never asked any questions about the outcome of those charges. But even in the midst of that appalling discovery, there was also one improvement in the way the bishop of the Yakima diocese has reacted to similar scandals of the past few years: This time it didn't take a lawsuit for Sevilla to come forward. Hardly earth-shattering, but an improvement nonetheless. Sevilla's public apology is also an improvement, and a welcome one at that. But those improvements don't completely resolve the two basic problems: The first is Sevilla's bad judgment in hiring Gonzlez to begin with, and his indefensible failure to follow up on the information that was available to him five years ago. Gonzlez, who moved to Cowiche from his native Mexico while in his 20s, spent about four years at the Mount Angel (Ore.) Seminary before being dismissed in February 2003 after he was charged with a crime related to viewing child pornography. The exact nature of the alleged crime is still in question. He returned to the Yakima area, and in April 2003 Sevilla hired him for a part-time job at the St. Peter Retreat Center in Cowiche. In his news conference last week, Sevilla said he knew of the allegations against the now-37-year-old Gonzlez, but he viewed the alleged violation as an isolated episode. Sevilla said Gonzlez was hired to deal with adults, but his duties expanded to full time and eventually included teaching youth classes in Cowiche and at Holy Redeemer Parish in Yakima. The criminal matter came to light March 19 after Gonzlez was stopped in Tieton for a traffic violation, and the police officer discovered that a warrant for Gonzlez's arrest had been issued in Oregon in 2005. The former seminarian is now being held in Yakima County jail on $800,000 bail. Apparently at no time from April 2003 until the March 19 arrest did Sevilla ask any questions or assign anyone else to follow up on the charges against Gonzlez, nor did he tell the Diocesan Lay Advisory Board, which advises the bishop about matters pertaining to the sexual abuse of minors, other clergy or parishioners about the reasons that Gonzlez had left the seminary. The bishop, in his news conference last week, called that a "series of errors in judgment, a whole bunch of them." We would call it an astounding series of errors, particularly in the wake of the sex-abuse and pornography scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church -- including the Diocese of Yakima -- in this decade. Which brings us to the second problem: When a Catholic bishop, who answers only to the pope, says he is accountable for bad judgment, what does that mean? It apparently does not mean Sevilla intends to reprimand himself or suspend himself without pay for a month, as a national support group for clergy sex abuse victims has urged him to do. Nor does it mean inviting an independent investigation of the past five years. The closest the diocese is willing to come to that, said Sevilla's chief of staff, is to hire a private investigator to interview members of the youth classes Gonzlez taught. That simply isn't enough. It isn't enough to restore parishioners' trust in their bishop. It isn't enough to assure the community that the church puts the safety of children above the privacy of individual employees. And it isn't enough to signal a real change in the way Bishop Sevilla views his role as the head of the Catholic Church in the Yakima Valley. He isn't just a protector of the faith; he must also be a protector of the people. It remains astounding to us that after all the painful cases of the past decade, he is only now beginning to understand that.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.