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	Archdiocese Lags on Student Training By Charles A. Radin Boston Globe March 22, 2006 http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/ 2006/03/22/archdiocese_lags_on_student_training/ The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has failed to provide safety training to about 40 percent of the children in its religious education classes and schools, despite a commitment made to provide such training in response to the clergy sexual-abuse scandal, archdiocesan officials said yesterday. The officials said that an independent audit found the archdiocese in compliance with all other requirements of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People adopted by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002. About 119,000 children, many of them parochial school students, have received instruction in understanding what is safe and unsafe touching, and what to do if unsafe touching occurs, said Deacon Anthony Rizzuto, director of the archdiocesan office of child advocacy. But about 90,000 children, almost all of them religious-education students in the parishes, have not. In telephone interviews yesterday, Rizzuto and the Rev. John Connolly, who is Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley's special assistant for dealing with the sexual-abuse crisis in the church, said the deficiencies in training resulted from reluctance among the 17,000 volunteers who teach religious education to discuss the subject of touching with children. He also blamed resistance among some priests and directors of education to embark on new programs while a massive consolidation of churches was underway. But O'Malley, who is in Rome awaiting elevation to cardinal, said in a statement released with the audit findings that there was no excuse for the failure to train the children. He said: "More must be done in order to live up to our commitment and responsibility. As we strive to protect our children and to ensure that the sexual abuse scandal is never repeated, anything short of full compliance is unacceptable." Church officials pointed out that, under the policies of the bishops' conference, the Archdiocese of Boston could have done a self-audit, but that O'Malley opted for an independent review by the Gavin Group, an organization with many former FBI agents. However, officials of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and of Voice of the Faithful, organizations critical of the church and its response to the abuses, challenged the validity of the audit and called for fuller disclosure of abuse allegations against priests. "Passing the audit as presently constituted does not guarantee that child sexual abuse will not continue," said Ray Joyce, executive director of Voice of the Faithful. "The Archdiocese of Chicago was found to be in full compliance in their last audit, and yet the Chicago media is right now full of accounts of clerical sex abuse and the failure of the archdiocese to supervise their priests who were known to be abusers." Barbara Blaine, president of the survivors network, said such audits "are almost meaningless." "These are surveys, not audits, conducted by retired government bureaucrats who see few church records and rely largely on verbal answers from the same chancery officials who have spent decades covering up horrific abuse," she said. Archdiocesan spokeswoman Kelly Lynch asserted that the audit was thorough. Charles A. Radin can be reached at radin@globe.com.
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