Scandals in the Church: The Policy, Extent of Priests' Accountability Debated

By Daniel J. Wakin
New York Times
June 14, 2002

Dallas, June 13 -- As the American bishops struggled to create a national policy to protect children from sexually abusive priests, New York's influential cardinal, Edward M. Egan, suggested today that bishops could still follow their own path.

"We're here today to share ideas, to think through, to understand, to help each other how we should proceed," Cardinal Egan said.

Noting the fundamental independence of dioceses within the structure of the church, he said, "A national policy is one thing, but a local policy is the determining policy."

When asked if that meant a bishop was free to depart from what guidelines are established at the annual bishops' conference here, Cardinal Egan said: "Let's see how this works out."

The bishops were in closed session through the evening, and were to vote on the guidelines tomorrow.

"We're here now to develop a national policy, there's no question about it," he added. "We're here also to share our understanding."

Cardinal Egan, a canon lawyer recently appointed to the Vatican's supreme court, said it was the New York Archdiocese's policy to remove a priest from ministry after only one clear act of sexual abuse.

A major concern expressed by victims of sexual abuse and other lay Catholics here has been how to hold bishops accountable for such policies in the future.

The draft charter on protecting minors that the bishops are considering here calls for the creation of a national office of child safety and a review board that would ensure that all the American bishops adhere to the same national policies.

While some victims of abuse said those measures were not enough, several bishops, including Cardinal Egan, suggested that they themselves should be entrusted with protecting children, and that public opinion would keep them honest.

"Let's say we didn't act purposefully," Cardinal Egan said. "I think the members of the community would be such you'd be held accountable."

In a new suggestion floated at the conference, some bishops proposed setting up review boards in provinces -- broad regions that include several dioceses and an archdiocese -- to look at whether each diocese is following the policy.

"That in itself is a tremendous mechanism for accountability," said Archbishop Harry J. Flynn of St. Paul-Minneapolis and chairman of the ad hoc committee on sex abuse.

A strong proponent of a national policy is Bishop John J. Myers of Newark, who is on the ad hoc committee on sex abuse and helped draft the charter. He said a national audit of dioceses made public "is raising the bar very high, and will ensure that the bishops be accountable."

He also suggested that archbishops who find that bishops in their regions are lax in policing abusive priests could report them to the authorities in the Vatican.

Other bishops said the equivalent of peer pressure could be a powerful check.

Bishop William S. Skylstad, the conference vice president, said anger among bishops over Cardinal Bernard F. Law's handling of abusive priests in Boston and the action of some other bishops has created a sense of solidarity. "We cannot let each other down," he said, and, at the same time: "They're not going to let one another off the hook. There's just too much at stake now."

Mark Serrano, an activist with the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said, "Embarrassment is not an incentive for doing the right thing morally." Mr. Serrano suggested that lay members be given greater power to scrutinize bishops at the diocesan level.

Bishops are strongly independent, and answer directly to the pope. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is the body meeting here, can establish policies, but they are not binding.

Some measures being discussed, such as special conditions on formally removing men from the priesthood, or laicizing them, for molesting minors must be sent to Rome for the Vatican approval to make them binding.

But it still would be up to bishops to act on laicizing a priest.

Speakers at the meeting today made it clear how difficult the hurdle is for bishops to overcome in assuring the faithful that after the meeting is over and guidelines are put in place -- as they were during the last such scandal 10 years ago -- they will not be forgotten.

"This is difficult for some of you to hear, and some of you will refuse, even now, to listen to it," R. Scott Appleby, director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at Notre Dame, told the rows of bishops sitting at long tables. Catholics of all sorts, liberal, moderate and conservative, agree on the cause of the scandal: "a betrayal of fidelity enabled by the arrogance that comes with unchecked power," he said. "In the current climate it will not be enough to say no bishop would refuse to implement the new policies. Each bishop must be held directly accountable."

Victims' advocates took note that it was the bishops themselves appointing the people who would scrutinize them. Even if the auditors are well-intentioned, "They're not any more infallible than bishops," said the Rev. Thomas Reese, the editor of the Catholic weekly America.

Bishops around the country have set up their own review boards. One, William Murphy of Rockville Center, N.Y., said the board considered cases without his involvement and dealt directly with law enforcement officials.

"I'm doing my best to be accountable," he said. "If this office is set up correctly," he said of the youth protection office, "that's a real step forward." But he acknowledged, "I don't know if that will satisfy people."

He described being deeply moved by the stories of four victims of priest sex abuse, who addressed the bishops this morning.

"I really want to pray," he said, his voice breaking and his eyes rimming with tears. "I hope I haven't done anything wrong. I don't believe I've done anything wrong. I pray I haven't."

[Photo Caption: Cardinal Edward M. Egan of the New York Archdiocese listened yesterday in the opening session of the conference of bishops. (Associated Press)]