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	Missteps Raise Questions about Bishops' Reforms on Sex Abuse By Rachel Zoll The Associated Press, carried in KGW [United States] March 10, 2006 http://www.kgw.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8G8UPQ01.html Whatever trust the nation's Roman Catholic bishops had restored with their response to clergy sex abuse has been badly eroded in recent weeks by a combination of missteps and outside criticism. Any of the latest developments would be disturbing, but taken together, critics see the church as floundering with the same problems that engulfed it four years ago. The troubling signs include: _The Massachusetts attorney general now says the Archdiocese of Boston, where the abuse crisis erupted, has failed to implement key reforms it had promised, including tracking guilty priests and teaching adolescents and teens to protect themselves from predators. _In a 2005 deposition unsealed last month, Bishop Joseph Imesch of Joliet, Ill., said he felt no obligation to go to police in the 1970s when a priest on trial for molestation told Imesch he was, indeed, guilty. The bishop said he has reported abuse claims to civil authorities in the last few years, but when pressed by a plaintiff's lawyer to cite examples, he could not. _In Chicago, Cardinal Francis George, a leader in shaping the bishops' reforms and the vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, admitted he failed to act soon enough in the case of the Rev. Daniel McCormack, who is now charged with molesting three boys since 2001. The archdiocese did not remove McCormack from his parish until four months after he was accused. _And this week, the Diocese of Spokane, Wash., revealed that its leader, Bishop William Skylstad, who is also president of the bishops' conference, was accused in December of repeatedly molesting a woman more than four decades ago when she was a minor. He denies the claim and retains his leadership posts. "It's a sign that nobody's in charge," said Illinois Justice Anne Burke, former chairwoman of the National Review Board, the lay watchdog panel the bishops created at their 2002 Dallas meeting, where they also adopted a toughened child protection plan. "Everybody left Dallas and for the last four years verbalized their desire to make some changes, but probably never really put them in place. Because they haven't done what they said they would do, it's my conclusion that they never intended to," she said. On Friday, Voice of the Faithful, a lay reform group created at the height of the abuse crisis, called for an independent investigation of George and Skylstad, and urged them to temporarily step down. Only the Vatican can discipline bishops. Defenders of the bishops say a small number of the nation's 195 dioceses are having problems and it would be wrong to tar every American prelate with a few isolated cases. Monsignor Francis Maniscalco, spokesman for the bishops' conference, pointed to audits the prelates had commissioned that found nearly all of the dioceses had implemented the reforms. "It would be hard to imagine an organization with greater determination to ensure a safe environment for its young people than the Catholic Church," he said. Yet, some outsiders have concluded the church cannot police itself. After a lull in state legislative activity sparked by the molestation scandal, lawmakers in Maryland, Ohio, Colorado and Delaware are considering proposals that would extend statutes of limitation on civil lawsuits in child sex abuse cases. The bills would also eliminate time limits for a year or two to allow all alleged victims to seek compensation — a move similar to one in California that opened the door for hundreds of new molestation claims. "From what I'm hearing in other parts of country, and other parts of the world, I think it's a significant problem and needs some attention," said Ohio Republican state Sen. Bob Spada, who is Catholic and sponsored his state's bill. It passed the Senate unanimously, but is stalled in the House. "As long as we have individuals who may be sexual predators but not recognized as such, how can we protect our children and grandchildren? I felt I owed it to them." The Rev. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit and expert on the American church, says it would be unrealistic to expect dioceses could do the right thing in every case, since even the criminal justice system, with its vast investigative resources, makes mistakes that leave the public vulnerable. However, even if the bishops have no trouble from now on, Reese contends many within and outside the church would never again trust them, since only one — Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston — has taken personal responsibility for sheltering abusers by resigning from his diocese. "The bishops applied 'zero-tolerance' to priests and not to themselves," Reese said. "That's the source of the credibility problem." On the Net: Bishops' Youth Protection Office: http://www.usccb.org/ocyp/
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