Portland Diocese Fails to Meet Goals, by John Richardson, Portland Press Herald, March 22, 2006

Portland Diocese Fails to Meet Goals

By John Richardson
Portland Press Herald
March 22, 2006

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/local/060322bishop.shtml

South Portland — Maine's Catholic Church is falling short on two fronts in its battle to rid the institution of sexual abuse problems, according to an annual audit of the diocese. The examination found the diocese needs to step up background checks on volunteers and employees and increase efforts to teach children how to protect themselves against sexual predators.

In announcing the findings Tuesday, Bishop Richard Malone called the failures "disheartening" and pledged to address the problems within the next two months.

"There is no higher priority for me than the protection of our children, and I consider this situation entirely unacceptable," Malone said. "It weakens our effort to prevent future abuse, our commitment to victims of past sexual abuse and our credibility in the community."

Paul Kendrick, left, and Harvey Paul stand outside South Portland's Holy Cross School during Bishop Richard Malone's news conference. They said the diocese also can protect children by releasing the names of priests accused of abuse.
Photo by the Doug Jones

Bishop Richard Malone speaks in South Portland on Tuesday.
Photo by the Doug Jones

Malone said any church volunteer or employee who has not returned paperwork for a background check by April 18 either would be placed on unpaid leave or prohibited from volunteering. And, he said, the diocese will make sure all children attending Catholic schools, church school classes and youth ministry programs receive abuse prevention training by June 1.

"Another audit is planned for June, and I pledge that the church in Maine will work diligently," Malone said during a news conference in the auditorium of Holy Cross School.

The Portland Diocese is one of five nationwide that is not complying with a church standard for background checks and one of 23 nationwide failing to meet the youth training standard, the diocese said Tuesday. All of Maine comprises one diocese, and there are 195 dioceses nationwide.

The findings come from an annual independent audit conducted in December. Results of the Maine audit will be combined with findings in other states and published in a national report at the end of this month. Each diocese was assessed to see whether it is complying with 13 abuse prevention standards adopted in 2002 in the wake of the national clergy abuse scandal.

Malone said the diocese was found to be in compliance with 11 other abuse prevention standards, including the handling and reporting of new allegations.

During the period reviewed in the audit - Aug. 9, 2004, to Dec. 12, 2005 - the diocese received 19 new reports of sexual abuse of minors, spokeswoman Sue Bernard said.

Most of those reports named 10 priests who already have faced accusations and have either died or been removed from ministry, she said. Two accused priests were the subject of allegations for the first time, she said. In one of those cases, the priest died in 1960, she said.

In the other, the Rev. Laurent Laplante was accused of inappropriate touching six years ago. He was placed on leave last December but returned to his parish in Kennebunk after an investigation found insufficient evidence of abuse.

Findings of the most recent audit clearly focused attention on the safeguards that should be in place to prevent future abuse.

The Portland Diocese has not completed criminal background checks on more than 600 of the 5,240 people listed as employees or volunteers serving in Maine parishes. Half or more of those people are no longer active, said Tom Deignan, a deacon who heads the church's Safe Environment Program.

Deignan said the failure to screen 13 percent of the employees and volunteers is simply due to the administrative challenges, such as volunteers who come and go.

Of the 4,570 active employees and volunteers who have undergone checks since they began in 2003, nine have been dismissed because of criminal backgrounds, including sexual assault and other offenses, Deignan said.

On the issue of training, the audit found only 33 percent of children in Maine's Catholic church had been through an abuse prevention course.

The diocese implemented its abuse prevention training program - called Child Lures Prevention - last fall. This is the first year the American church is requiring that all children receive training, officials said.

Until now, the diocese has provided the course at family workshops in the parishes. It has been difficult to get parents to bring their children to the sessions to talk about such unpleasant subjects, said Barbara Smith, religious education director for the diocese.

Malone said parishes will immediately begin training children when they come to religious education classes and other programs. Parents can request that their children not take part, officials said.

While disappointed about the audit report, Malone said both shortcomings should be easy to fix.

Paul Kendrick, a critic of the diocese and co-founder of Voice of the Faithful in Maine, said the failures show the diocese has not been aggressive enough in addressing the sexual abuse crisis.

"It's inexcusable. The charter was put together in 2002 and there are 220,000 (Maine) Catholics and there are certainly plenty of people within the church who could have been called upon to conduct these investigations and provide the training," he said.

Kendrick and Harvey Paul stood outside Holy Cross School during the press conference. They said the diocese also can protect children by releasing the names of priests accused of abusing children. The men are still a threat, Kendrick said, because they were removed from the ministry in secret.

"Where have these guys been all this time?" he said. "Whose neighborhoods have they been living in?"

While the names of many abusive priests have been released, Malone said Tuesday he is not prepared to identify all accused priests until their cases go through a formal review process in Rome.

LATEST STATISTICS

AN ANNUAL AUDIT found that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland has not conducted enough background checks of employees and volunteers. Here are the latest statistics from the diocese:

5,810 BACKGROUND checks conducted in the past three years.

4,570 ACTIVE individuals checked, representing 87 percent of the 5,240 listed as active employees and volunteers.

MORE THAN 600 individuals listed as active who have not been checked, half of whom are expected to be inactive.

238 checks found criminal arrest records.

Nine people were removed because of their records, including two arrests for sexual assault, one for sexual abuse of a minor, one for indecent exposure and two for assault.

Staff Writer John Richardson can be contacted at 791-6324 or at:
jrichardson@pressherald.com