Archdiocese Task Force Designed to Fall Short

By Ruben Rosario
Pioneer Press
April 17, 2014

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_25589696/archdiocese-task-force-clergy-child-abuse-designed-fall

Many well-intentioned reports urging change are only as good as their implementation.

Which gives me an opening here to address the findings released this week by the seven-member Safe Environment and Ministerial Standards task force. The panel was assigned to look into how the local archdiocese mishandled clergy child abuse and misconduct cases in recent years and to recommend changes.

Not surprisingly, the task force found "serious shortcomings" in the way the archdiocese handled the cases of one priest found with adult pornography in his possession and another priest arrested, convicted and serving time for abusing minors while a pastor in a parish on St. Paul's East Side.

Conducting criminal background checks on priests every six years, creating an anonymous abuse complaint hotline, making the Delegate for a Safe Environment a mandated reporter and having all misconduct allegations reviewed by the archdiocese's Clergy Review Board were among its recommendations.

But what the task force did not dohas drawn criticism for the report. A clergy victims group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the report failed to name names or to assign blame to those who "ignored, hid, minimized or enabled heinous crimes against children."

Jennifer Haselberger, the former chancellor for canonical affairs whose public disclosures last fall through Minnesota Public Radio of mismanagement shed light on the cases and led to formation of the task force, was not impressed with the findings.

"I am puzzled that the task force concluded that there were not appropriate mechanisms in place to (bring to the) surface failures with the policies and procedures," Haselberger, who resigned in protest in spring 2013, told me. "I assure you that we were very well aware of the failures, and that I wrote countless memos on the subject, and that the decision to proceed in the same manner was a deliberate one."

On advice of her attorney, Haselberger turned down a request to meet with the task force.

Yet "I did provide them with information," she added in an email. "Specifically, I informed them that all necessary information was available from the archdiocese in the countless memos I had prepared over the course of nearly five years, which described in great detail the concerns I had regarding the archdiocese's handling of clergy misconduct.

"According to the report's appendix of materials reviewed by the Task Force, my memos and other internal communications were either not sought or not produced."

'DON'T CALL THE CHURCH. CALL 911'

The truth is that the task force members did not review Haselberger's memos. This panel was created with the sole mission of looking into flawed policies and making recommendations. It was not a grand jury seeking to indict someone or assign blame. How could it be? It was commissioned by the archdiocese itself.

The panel also was handicapped by its members' inability to interview two other key church officials heavily involved in the decisions that led to the mishandling of the cases. One is former vicar general Kevin McDonough, who lawyered up soon after the public disclosures, and his successor, the Rev. Peter Laird, who resigned in October in the midst of the news reports.

The manner by which Laird was not made available to the task force may suggest that an entrenched culture in church leadership may be hard to change.

The task force was informed by a church official that Laird was on leave and they could not locate him. Yet, the panel later learned that Laird sent a letter to the archbishop and expressed a willingness to meet with the panel. But the panel had concluded its probe by then.

Not all seven members bought the explanation of why Laird was not made available to them in a timely manner.

In its report, the task force expressed disappointment that "the archdiocese was not more transparent with respect to the situation with Father Laird. The Task Force sees this failure to communicate and lack of urgency as an example of the kind of issue that the Archdiocese needs to address to change its culture."

In fairness, the task force's job was to simply look at what went wrong and to create an environment that would prevent it in the future.

It was not there to present heads on a silver platter. Perhaps another entity will be assigned that task. The recommendation of bringing in more lay people to monitor handling of cases and conducting regular performance audits are ways to ensure that no one individual can decide a case and also eliminates that "thin black line" of clericalism.

It also noted that "the Office for the Protection of Children and Youth needs to ensure that all parish websites emphasize that concerns and suspicions of clergy sex abuse of minors should be reported to law enforcement."

Or, to quote a former parish pastor of mine during a homily more than 15 years ago: If you suspect a child has been abused, don't call the Church. Call 911."

That is still the best recommendation of all.

Ruben Rosario can be reached at 651-228-5454 or rrosario@ pioneerpress.com . Follow him at twitter.com/nycrican.