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	Cardinal: Scandal a 'Moral Crisis' By Anna Johnson The Associated Press, carried in Chicago Sun-Times April 6, 2006 http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/george06.html Cardinal Francis George, the head of the nation's third-largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, said Thursday that sexual abuse of children by priests is a "moral crisis" that threatens to stain the church's progress over the past 50 years. George and the Chicago archdiocese have been under fire for weeks for failing to remove a priest from church work even though allegations that he sexually abused a boy arose months before he was charged. The cardinal has accepted blame for the failure and has vowed to correct what went wrong. But he said Thursday that the national clergy abuse scandal is jeopardizing the church and the progress it has made in educating children, evangelizing and becoming more integrated. "The moral crisis colors all this. ... All of that threatens to be completely submerged into the crisis around the sexual abuse of minors by priests here and elsewhere," George told the City Club of Chicago, a nonpartisan civic group. The Rev. Daniel McCormack was first charged Jan. 21 with sexual abuse for allegedly fondling two boys. Prosecutors charged him again in early February with sexually abusing a third boy. His attorney insists he is innocent. The archdiocese has acknowledged that one of the charges stems from an allegation first made in August, but McCormack was not removed until the day he was first charged. George, who played a prominent role in developing the church's response to the national clergy abuse scandal that first erupted in 2002, hired an outside investigator to examine the McCormack case. The investigator discovered a string of lapses by archdiocesan staff that left children at risk. In a new lawsuit filed Thursday in Cook County, a 31-year-old Chicago man alleges that he was molested as a child over a period of several years by a priest who should have been removed from the ministry. "We're very alarmed. A victim had come forward while this kid was being abused," said attorney Jeff Anderson, who represents the unnamed plaintiff. Archdiocese spokeswoman Colleen Dolan said the case occurred before established protocols for dealing with accused priests and the priest in question left the priesthood in 1993. "The archdiocese looks forward to dealing with any victim in a compassionate way to settle their grievance," she said. Observers say the recent priest abuse allegations have crippled not only George, who is vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, but also other dioceses and the bishops who run them. "The McCormack case in particular really sets the bishops back and undermines the progress they were trying to make," said David Gibson, a former Vatican radio newsman and author of "The Coming Catholic Church." Voice of the Faithful, a lay reform group founded at the height of the abuse crisis, has urged George and the conference's president, Bishop William Skylard, who is facing his own priest abuse allegation, to temporarily step down from the conference. The Survivors Network for the Abused by Priests has gone one step further and called for George's resignation as head of the archdiocese. Only the Vatican can discipline bishops. More recently, Patricia Ewers, chairwoman of the National Review Board, the bishops' lay watchdog panel, has said what happened in Chicago "was a great sorrow and disappointment to all of us." Others say George might be able to regain the trust needed to effectively lead the archdiocese if he keeps doing what he's been doing-- admitting his mistakes and doing what he can to correct them. "The more transparency in institutions, the better," said the Rev. James Halstead, head of the religious studies department at DePaul University in Chicago. "People basically want to trust institutions and leaders, so do your best, tell us the truth, apologize when mistakes happen. ... Those of us who are human beings will cut you some slack." George said Thursday that even though it's a difficult time for the archdiocese, he plans to continue to let people know they are loved by God and the church. "The importance of saying that again and again even if our credibility is not what it should be can't be in any way diminished by the terrible crisis," he said. "If we stop telling people God loves them, then of course we've lost our purpose and we've lost the church herself."
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