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	Leader of Catholic Watchdog Says Dioceses Need Broader Oversight By Rachel Zoll The Associated Press, carried in Belleville News-Democrat March 31, 2006 http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/politics/14231824.htm WASHINGTON - The head of a lay watchdog panel created by Roman Catholic bishops says a key reform the prelates adopted to protect children from clergy sex abuse is insufficient. Patricia Ewers, chairwoman of the National Review Board, said annual audits by a private firm that checks whether child protection programs are in place should be expanded to measure whether the polices are effective. Her comments came Thursday as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released results of the third annual audit of child protection policies in the 195 American dioceses. Auditors found that 88.5 percent of dioceses had put in place full safeguards for children, as required by the bishops' reforms. However, 104 dioceses conducted a "self-audit." In previous years, teams from the Gavin Group, led by former FBI agent William Gavin, had conducted onsite audits in all participating dioceses. Ewers said the audit's shortcomings are especially clear in its review of the Archdiocese of Chicago. The archdiocese was found to be in full compliance in the 2005 audit, but it had failed to remove an accused priest from church work for four months last year until he was criminally charged. An outside investigator hired by Chicago Cardinal Francis George to look into the priest's case found a string of stunning lapses by archdiocesan staff that left children at risk. George is the vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "To find that this happened in Chicago was a great sorrow and disappointment to all of us," Ewers said. "If people do not live up to their responsibilities, do not communicate effectively, then you can have the kind of terrible consequences you have in Chicago." Jimmy Lago, chancellor of the Chicago Archdiocese, has said the archdiocese will hire investigators to look into existing priests' seminary files to check for evidence of sexual misconduct before they were ordained. "I don't expect to find misconduct in those files," Lago told the Chicago TribuneThursday. "If there is misconduct in them, it would be a priest that would not be in ministry. The issue is to make sure that's the case." The nation's bishops will decide whether to expand their audits. In an accompanying report, the bishops conference said dioceses had received 783 new credible abuse claims last year, most of which date back decades, and paid abuse-related expenses of nearly $467 million. The abuse problem was already known to have cost dioceses more than $1 billion since 1950, including some expenses paid last year. Still, Teresa Kettelkamp, director of the bishops' Office of Child and Youth Protection, said the total abuse-related expenses paid in 2005 were probably the largest ever for a single year. The total number of accusations against Catholic clergy now stands at more than 12,000 since 1950. The bishops' abuse prevention policy requires dioceses to hire victim assistance coordinators, form review boards to help evaluate abuse claims, conduct background checks on staff and volunteers and teach children to protect themselves from predators. The biggest failure auditors found was that several dioceses don't have full safe environment training for children, while a few others have not fully complied with the call for background checks. ON THE NET U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: http://www.usccb.org
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