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	Manchester Diocese Has Yet to See the Light Concord Monitor [New Hampshire] April 2, 2006 http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article? AID=/20060402/REPOSITORY/604020369/1027/OPINION01 The fate of the youngest members of the Roman Catholic Church in New Hampshire is now in the hands of parishioners. The leadership of the Diocese of Manchester remains in denial about its history of child sex abuse by priests and its responsibility to ensure that more children won't be scarred for life. In 2002, the state cut a deal with the diocese: It would not prosecute officials who covered up for the child molesters in church ranks if the diocese took major steps to prevent abuse in the future. Part of that agreement called for an audit of the church's compliance. The first audit was delayed by the diocese's objections to paying for it and to the terms of it. The audit's results were made public last week. They show that the church failed to keep its end of the bargain in many ways. The diocese has made progress, but its claims that it has fully complied with the agreement are false. Here are just some of the deficiencies Attorney General Kelly Ayotte cited before giving the church 30 days to correct them or face court action. • In one parish, only 16 percent of employee and volunteer names had been checked against the state's registry of sex offenders. The registry is just a few clicks away on the state's website. • The diocese has given child protection training to 9,000 people, but it has no idea how many employees and volunteers need training and how many missed or skipped it. Auditors say no signed confirmation of training exists for 8.5 percent of the diocese's priests. • Child abuse training and background checks were delegated to individual parishes, but the diocese was lax in tracking how much was actually done. It only recently hired someone to keep tabs on progress and report to church authorities. • Despite a history of having lost or destroyed records sought by law enforcement in the past, current records were found to be incomplete or inadequate. • Procedures to remove people accused of abuse from positions where they could have contact with minors have not been formalized. The diocese says such complaints are administrative and minor. That in itself is telling. What it says is that the church has not taken the issue of child abuse or its agreement with the state seriously. The most damning proof of that came in an argument made by the Rev. Edward Arsenault, the diocese's spokesman. The state says the recently released audit was the first of four required for compliance. Not so, said Arsenault. He claimed the deal was good for five years. If four audits can't be completed in that time, too bad. Yet the church's stonewalling caused the delays. Three priests, including one accused of using a church computer to access possible child pornography, have been removed from the diocese's active ministry since 2002. But the church's performance does not inspire confidence that all potential abusers have or will be identified. It's not hard to see why so many problems remain. The cause, in Ayotte's words, stems from "a failure to take responsibility at the top of the diocese." Bishop John McCormack and Arsenault failed the church, children and parishioners before the agreement. They continue to do so. Nothing will change as long as they are in charge. Under McCormack's leadership, the diocese has ignored or ostracized its critics and thumbed its nose at the state. But the diocese's leaders will remain in office as long as the faithful fill the pews and collection plates. It is the church's members themselves who are now failing their church by not demanding leaders who take the protection of children seriously.
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