Priest Molesters Often Arent Monitored Despite Church Promise, by David Gibson, Politics Daily, July 6, 2010

Priest-Molesters Often Aren't Monitored, Despite Church Promise

By David Gibson
Politics Daily
July 6, 2010

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/07/05/priest-molesters-often-arent-monitored-as-church-promised/

Figuring out how to keep children safe from child molesters released from prison is a longstanding problem facing American society, since even neighborhood notification programs can only do so much. Protecting kids from predators who escaped criminal punishment, as most clergy accused in the Catholic abuse scandal did, is likewise a dilemma.

The Catholic Church hoped to have a better solution, since it could insist that priests found to have abused children but who were beyond the reach of the law might be closely monitored and kept away from minors if they remained priests in the employ of a bishop.

But an investigation by The Associated Press has found that a number of clergy who were considered too old or ill to be dismissed from the priesthood are in fact not being supervised, as the Catholic bishops had promised they would be as part of a package of reforms adopted in 2002.

The AP found that bishops were more likely to defrock (or "laicize," in the technical term) priests, and that only a few dioceses had any oversight programs for priest-molesters who remained. Bishops found that monitoring priests was costly, and that keeping abusers in the priesthood -- even though they were barred from active or public ministry -- could expose them to further liability if the men assaulted children again.

"In many instances, it's a decision based on whether there is the probability of being able to provide the monitoring that's necessary," said Sister Sharon Euart, a canon lawyer who advises bishops and religious orders. If they can't, they may be more likely to begin the process of removing them from the priesthood, she said.

That effectively sends these abusers out into the general population with no oversight.

"Some dioceses really have laicized everybody," Monica Applewhite, a consultant who conducts abuse-prevention training and helps develop policies and monitoring programs for dioceses and religious orders, told The AP.

There is no solid information on how many dioceses have programs to monitor abusers who remain priests, though Applewhite estimates just a few hundred accused clergy are now under supervision around the country.

Child abusers tend to be compulsive offenders who have a high rate of recidivism, which makes parole more of a gamble than even for murderers and other convicts.

The difficulty is twofold: abusers who remain priests are not being supervised adequately, and those who choose to leave or are kicked out of the priesthood then sever their ties with the diocese, which has no leverage over them.

Civil authorities cannot monitor them, and even if they had the right to do so, they are unlikely to dedicate resources to such tasks when they could be better used going after current child abusers who pose a bigger danger.