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	Bishops Report Decline in Abuse Accusations By Neela Banerjee The New York Times [Washington DC] March 31, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/us/31church.html?_r=1&oref=login WASHINGTON, March 30 — A total of 783 new accusations of priests' sexual abuse were received by the nation's Roman Catholic bishops last year, with about 13 percent of the cases dating from 1990 or later, the bishops reported Thursday. In issuing its third annual audit intended to assess efforts to prevent such abuse, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops emphasized that accusations had declined from the 1,092 reported in 2004. The bishops also said that as a result of a provision they adopted in 2002 under a toughened policy, 94.5 percent of children in Catholic schools and Sunday school classes had been educated on keeping themselves safe from abuse, an increase from 51 percent the year before. The survey said 87 percent of the new accusations involved abuse that occurred before 1990, some of it as early as 1950. Only nine accusations concerned abuse last year. But victims' groups have argued that recent accounts of abuse and the church's resistance to extending the statute of limitations on it are renewing doubts about the bishops' commitment to solving the problem. The president of the bishops' conference, William S. Skylstad of the Spokane Diocese, himself faces accusations of sexually abusing a girl in the early 1960's, which he denies. And earlier this year, after a priest in Chicago was arrested on charges of molesting boys, the archdiocese there came under fire when it was disclosed that the police had shared accusations of abuse with church officials as early as last August. The archdiocese did not remove the priest until January. Patricia O. Ewers, chairwoman of the National Review Board, a lay group established by the bishops to monitor the church's response to the sexual abuse crisis, said Thursday that given the scandal in Chicago, it was "clear that the church has not done enough." Speaking here at a news conference where the bishops' findings were announced, Dr. Ewers noted that the audit process, which is largely a matter of self-reporting by diocesan staff, did not examine the effectiveness of anti-abuse procedures adopted by the bishops, only if those procedures are in place. In fact, the new audit found the Archdiocese of Chicago to be in compliance with the church's policy on abuse, noted Agustin Perez, one of the independent investigators hired by the archdiocese in the wake of the recent scandal. While the bishops' report was debated, the office of the New Hampshire attorney general issued its own audit of the Manchester Diocese on Thursday. It cited a "general level of ineffectiveness in enforcing compliance" with an agreement between the diocese and the state to protect children from abuse. The Rev. Edward J. Arsenault, a representative of Bishop John B. McCormack of the Manchester Diocese, which takes in all of New Hampshire, said in a statement that work remained to be done, but pointed out that no minors were harmed during the period audited by the state, 2002-5. Nonetheless, the attorney general, Kelly A. Ayotte, told the bishop in a letter dated Monday that failure to address problems in sexual abuse procedures before the state's next audit "may result in court action for contempt and other legal remedies."
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