CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
Sept. 18, 2019
By Elyssa Cherney
Acting on concerns that more than 1,000 reports of possible sexual abuse by Catholic clergy may not have been properly reviewed by DCFS, the child welfare agency has opened 24 new investigations into alleged priest misconduct and hired a law firm to probe why the cases weren’t immediately addressed.
The reports were received by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services under a 2006 agreement with the Archdiocese of Chicago, requiring the church to notify DCFS every time it became aware of an abuse allegation, even if the accuser was no longer a minor. The measure went beyond state law, which does not require such cases to be reported to the agency because they don’t involve an underage victim.
DCFS Acting Director Marc Smith, who was appointed to lead the agency in March, said he was not aware of the policy or the existence of the reports until recently. Smith did not elaborate on how the problem came to his attention, but a DCFS spokesman later clarified that the protocol was discovered while looking into a specific case involving clergy abuse.
The 24 new DCFS investigations involve adults who came forward years after the alleged abuse occurred. In those cases, the department is working to determine whether the accused might still have access to children, through the church or in another setting.
Thompson Hine, a Cleveland-based law firm with Chicago offices, was hired to assess DCFS’ protocol for handling the archdiocese notifications, Smith said. A team of attorneys will be conducting the review under a contract that is capped at $225,000, according to the department.
In all, DCFS located 1,100 reports that it had received from the archdiocese since 2006. While DCFS staff went through the reports and flagged the 24 as needing further investigation, Smith said he had unanswered questions about whether the department properly reviewed all the notifications.
“At this point, it’s not clear exactly what happened with each of the 1,100 cases,” Smith said. “We’ve asked somebody to come in and do an evaluation to help us get a better picture of exactly what happened. We know that it’s best for us to take our time in these kind of scenarios to review exactly what happened.”
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