BishopAccountability.org
	Catholic Bishops Are Central to Abuse and Reform, a New Study Says By Daniel Burke The Oklahoman May 21, 2011 http://newsok.com/study-says-bishops-are-key-to-priest-scandal-reform/article/3569815 A sweeping new report on the clergy sex abuse scandal compares the Roman Catholic Church to police departments, with similar hierarchies and moral authority. And because the church, like the police, has “historically ‘policed itself,’” as the report says, some lay Catholics and victims’ advocates say even a stack of damning reports will not change a church that has been historically resistant to reform. A recent grand jury report that found dozens of accused priests in active ministry in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, critics say, offers little evidence for hope. The study by New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, released Wednesday, portrays the abuse scandal as largely confined to the past. More than 90 percent of nearly 10,700 allegations against Catholic priests occurred before 1990, according to the report. Researchers said the abuse of minors correlated to a jump in deviant behavior in society at large, such as premarital sex, experimental drug use and crime. “The problem of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests in the United States is largely historical,” said Karen Terry, principal investigator for the study, “and the bulk of the cases occurred decades ago.” The ongoing crisis in Philadelphia — which even church bishops were at a loss to explain — shows the scandal will continue unless bishops are held accountable for their actions, victims’ advocates said. Nonmandatory guidelines issued by the Vatican on Monday also give little indication oversight is forthcoming. Only one U.S. bishop, Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, has been forced to resign for failing to prevent sexual abuse of children. In the 60 years covered by the study, bishops’ response to abusive priests “changed substantively,” the report says. “For example, abusive priests were less likely to be returned to active ministry and/or more likely to be placed on administrative leave during the later years.” The report said bishops, like many Americans in the 1950-1980s, failed to understand the harm resulting from sexual abuse. Researchers, however, did not give the bishops a pass. Under reforms adopted by the bishops in 2002, credible accusations of abuse are supposed to be reported to civil authorities, and dioceses are to be audited annually. But neither policy is mandatory. The John Jay report found bishops reported just 14 percent of accusations against priests to the police. Two bishops refuse to allow the audits in their dioceses. In January, Pope Benedict XVI promoted one of the two holdout bishops to a larger diocese. “What kind of message does that send?” said Nicolas Cafardi, a canon law professor and former chairman of the bishops committee that drafted the abuse guidelines.
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