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	Current Diocesan Sex Abuse Audits Not Enough, Says Review Board Head By Jerry Filteau Catholic News Service March 30, 2006 http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0601859.htm WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The U.S. bishops need to step to a new level in assessing their programs and policies to protect children and prevent clerical sex abuse, the head of the bishops' National Review Board said March 30. "The present audit process is insufficient," Patricia O'Donnell Ewers, the board's chairwoman, told journalists gathered at Washington's National Press Club for the public release of the 2005 audits of the sex abuse responsiveness of dioceses and male religious orders. The process must move from seeing whether dioceses have requisite policies and programs in place to assessing how effectively those policies and programs are being implemented, she said. The board, a 13-member panel of prominent lay Catholics, was established by the bishops in 2002 to monitor the compliance of dioceses with the provisions of the bishops' "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People." One of its tasks is to review annual audits of diocesan child protection and sex abuse response policies and programs and make recommendations to the bishops for improvements in those areas. Ewers said the board had recognized the inadequacy of the current diocesan audit process "even before the situation in Chicago received attention." The Chicago Archdiocese, long regarded as having some of the best sex abuse policies and programs in the country, was recently embroiled in controversy when it was learned that the procedures in place were not followed and a pastor who should have been removed from ministry following an allegation of child sex abuse had been allowed to continue working for months, until police arrested him. Outside consultants who were called in to investigate the situation also found other weaknesses, including inadequate monitoring of accused priests. "It is clear that much change has been introduced" to protect children throughout the U.S. church, Ewers said, but the conclusions of the Chicago consultants, made public March 20, "confirm the board's fears of what can happen when good policies and procedures are not carried out." "The audit process must be deepened into an examination of the administration of the programs and effectiveness of the structures in place," she said. She also urged the bishops to set national standards of quality that diocesan programs must meet, to consolidate personnel records of priests and to follow Chicago's lead in implementing "rigorous monitoring programs for accused priests." The 2005 compliance report, based on audits conducted in dioceses between last July and December, imposed a stricter standard than the previous year for compliance with the charter's call for safe environment training for all children and church personnel. In 2004 dioceses were considered in compliance if they had established such a program and set up a schedule to carry it out; in 2005 they were in compliance only if they had carried it out fully throughout the diocese. Twenty-one of the 191 dioceses that participated in the audits had not yet completed their safe environment training at the time they were audited. Nationwide, the report said, 7.3 million people, including nearly 5.8 million children in Catholic schools and religious education classes, had received safe environment training; only 400,000 of those who should receive the training had not yet done so. Others on the panel that presented the report to the media were Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Teresa M. Kettelkamp, executive director of the USCCB Office of Child and Youth Protection; and William A. Gavin, president of the Gavin Group, the Boston-based firm that conducted the diocesan audits. Gavin said the progress the bishops have made in implementing the 2002 charter is "exceptional." "This audit demonstrated that 98.6 percent of all individuals requiring backgrounds (background checks) have been completed and 94.6 percent of all individuals requiring safe environment training" have received it, he said. Kettelkamp also emphasized how far the bishops had come in three years. "What cannot be disputed is the fact that so very much has been accomplished in that short period of time," she said. But she also stressed that the implementation of the charter is something that has had to evolve. She said the dioceses have gone through the first two phases, establishing structures to deal with the problem and assessing those policies and procedures. The next step, she said, is the "more complex and challenging task" of assessing the outcomes of those structures and processes, seeing how effectively they are addressing the problem. Bishop Skylstad said the bishops are committed to eliminating the sexual abuse of minors by clergy. "We cannot permit a position of sacred trust to be used as a cover to violate the innocence of children and adolescents," he said. But he also warned that the issue of abuse extends beyond priests. "If our whole society is to be a safer environment for young people, the full extent of this problem must be understood as it exists within the home, the neighborhood, the school -- public and private -- and within all institutions that engage in the care of children," he said.
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