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	Focus Shifts to Irish Abuse Scandal in 2011, but US Problems Persist Georgia Bulletin December 6, 2011 www.georgiabulletin.org/world/2011/12/05/NEWS-3/ WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In 2011, the epicenter of the Catholic Church's clergy sex abuse scandal moved from the United States to Europe, prompting a church-state crisis in Ireland and a heightened response from the Vatican. But problems persisted in the U.S., where Bishop Robert W. Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., avoided a possible criminal misdemeanor indictment for failing to report a priest suspected of child abuse and, following a devastating grand jury report in Philadelphia, a former archdiocesan secretary of the clergy was facing criminal charges of failing to protect children from alleged abusers. Nationwide reports released during 2011, as mandated by the U.S. bishops' "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People," showed that reported cases of child sexual abuse in U.S. dioceses and religious institutes declined between 2008 and 2009, as did the costs to dioceses and religious orders for lawsuits and other allegation-related expenses. The long-awaited report on "The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010," conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York and commissioned by the independent National Review Board, was released in May. It said there is "no single identifiable 'cause' of sexually abusive behavior toward minors" and encouraged steps to deny abusers "the opportunity to abuse." But much of the abuse-related attention during the year was focused on Ireland, where fallout continued from two government reports issued in 2009 -- the first detailing decades of neglect and abuse of children in church-run residential institutions, the second faulting the Archdiocese of Dublin for the way it handled 325 sex abuse claims in the years 1975-2004. A new report on similar problems in the Diocese of Cloyne and charges by Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny that the Vatican attempted to "frustrate an inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic as little as three years ago" led the Vatican to withdraw its diplomatic representative to the country, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza. Ireland then decided to close its embassy to the Vatican, citing economic factors, but continued diplomatic relations with the Holy See. An apostolic visitation ordered by Pope Benedict XVI to assess the Irish sex abuse problem was completed in 2011 and its results were expected to be released early in 2012.
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