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	U.S. Bishops Make Little Change to Sex Abuse Policy By Daniel Burke St. Louis Post-Dispatch June 17, 2011 http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/article_42b1cb15-c3e2-5dd3-88c0-9cc6a8193d67.html The nation's Roman Catholic bishops on Thursday overwhelmingly voted to maintain current church policies on the sexual abuse of children, making only minor tweaks to policies that critics say contain large loopholes. The bishops voted 187-5, with four abstentions, to make only slight revisions to their Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, guidelines adopted in 2002 as the clergy sex abuse scandal spread nationwide. The bishops argue that the current rules are effective, pointing to a sharp decline in new incidents of abuse since 2002. But victims' advocates say recent reports of ethical lapses by church leaders in Philadelphia and Kansas City prove that the nonbinding church policies are weak and unenforceable. "Despite revelations in numerous dioceses showing that abuse has been continuing under the bishops' current abuse policy and that the policy needs to be overhauled, the bishops ... chose to rubber-stamp a nearly identical policy for the future," said the watchdog website BishopAccountability.org in a statement. "This is a squandered opportunity and a disaster for children." After the developments in Philadelphia, St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson told the Post-Dispatch that he stood by church procedures in the region on handling allegations of child sexual abuse. "We believe our process is effective," he wrote in an email. Interviewed in 2009, as Carlson prepared to come to St. Louis, he said he would review the files of every priest. In the spring, he said he had reviewed all allegations involving priests permitted to minister, but he stopped short of saying he reviewed all the files. "My review is ongoing and if new information is reported, I will immediately evaluate that information in accordance to our policies, and I will take appropriate action," he wrote. One of the latest St. Louis priest misconduct cases involved the Rev. James P. Grady, who last summer was sentenced to 80 months in prison after being caught in an online sex sting. Prosecutors said Grady, pastor of St. Raphael the Archangel Church in St. Louis then, had exchanged messages with an email address listed in an ad in the "adult services" section of the Craigslist website, and agreed to pay $80 for 30 minutes of kissing and oral sex with a 16-year-old girl. Grady pleaded guilty on one felony count of possession of child pornography after investigators found images on his personal laptop computer. After sentencing, Carlson said in a statement that he would begin the laicization process because the criminal case was over. Meanwhile, the Diocese of Belleville continues to legally wrangle with a $5 million civil jury award in a sexual abuse case involving the Rev. Raymond Kownacki, a case that stems from the abuse of a teenage boy in the 1970s. Most of the revisions approved Thursday bring the U.S. bishops' policies in line with Vatican norms issued in 2010, which equate child abuse with abusing the mentally disabled, and make the acquisition, possession or distribution of child pornography a church crime. The bishops also adopted two revisions proposed by Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley. One requires bishops to follow civil laws about reporting sexual abuse accusations against fellow bishops to civil authorities, just as they are expected to do for priests. O'Malley's other amendment aligns the bishops' guidelines with federal laws that outlaw pornographic images of children under the age of 18. A previous bishops' proposal had included only children under age 14. "Without this change, we will likely experience much criticism and diminished confidence by way of providing exceptions for some circumstances of offenses with minors," O'Malley wrote in proposing the revision. The bishops rejected a plea from Archbishop Francis Hurley, the former head of the Diocese of Anchorage, Alaska, to drop their "zero tolerance" policy, which permanently bars credibly accused priests from ministry. "In the mind of most people, and in my own mind, when we say reconciliation and forgiveness, we mean the embrace of that person back into the community and the fold. We are not doing that with the priests and the priests feel that very much," Hurley said. As a retired bishop, Hurley does not have a vote at the bishops' semiannual sessions, but his comments will "probably color our subsequent debate," said Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. No bishop, however, took up Hurley's amendment. Jesse Bogan of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
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