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	Separation of Church and State over Audits AG, Diocese Disagree on How Many Remain By Eric Moskowitz Monitor April 16, 2006 http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060416/REPOSITORY/ 604160369&SearchID=73242150307681 When the state released the results of its first audit of New Hampshire's Roman Catholic diocese, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte said three more would follow. The audits are a key component of the 2002 agreement that spared the diocese from criminal prosecution despite decades of protecting sexually abusive priests. But the Rev. Edward Arsenault - the diocese's top official for sexual-abuse issues - said he understood the agreement differently. The audits would end in December 2007, no matter how many had been conducted, Arsenault said. That was late last month. Senior Assistant Attorney General Will Delker has said the audits should extend beyond the 2007 deadline because church protests over the cost and the nature of the audits delayed their start by a year and a half. But the attorney general's office does not believe the issue needs to be resolved immediately, Delker said Friday. David Braiterman, the Concord lawyer who represents a coalition of organizations and individuals who want the church to comply with the spirit of the agreement, said the question is too important to wait. Given both the deficiencies revealed by the first audit and the church's attempts to limit that audit, Braiterman said, the state should not wait to make sure that four audits can be performed. "This issue needs to be brought to the court," said Braiterman, whose clients include the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and the New Hampshire Voice of the Faithful. "We should not wait for 2007 and for the church to simply say, 'We're all done now,' and for the state to then have to rush in to get an order from the court that the process needs to be continuing." Anything short of the full audit schedule would be a "victory for the forces of secrecy and backsliding,"said David Clohessy, the national director for SNAP, the survivors network. "The church's track record is so consistently terrible, we should be arguing about more vigilance and oversight, not less." In the December 2002 agreement signed by Bishop John McCormack and then-Attorney General Phil McLaughlin, the diocese acknowledged that the church's years of protecting abusive priests had led to more children being victimized and recognized that the state had sufficient evidence to obtain a criminal conviction against the diocese for child endangerment. The agreement spared the diocese from the unprecedented criminal charges, though it did not preclude the state from prosecuting individual priests. It also spared the state from having to proceed with a trial and allowed for the establishment of new requirements for the diocese that would not have been created by a court conviction and sentence. The agreement allowed the state to release its investigative file, making public a cache of 10,000 pages of internal church documents showing how the diocese handled - or mishandled - decades of abuse allegations. The agreement required the church to implement comprehensive policies for preventing, identifying and reporting child abuse, including mandatory screening and training programs for all clergy, staff and volunteers who work with children. It also called for the removal of any church personnel suspected of abuse, pending the outcome of an investigation. Those provisions were designed to be perpetual. The church also agreed to auditing by the state. Many saw that as the key provision in the agreement, because it would reveal whether the church followed the other terms. The agreement, approved by Hillsborough County Superior Court Justice Carol Ann Conboy, said this about the length of the audit: "For a period of five years ending Dec. 31, 2007, the Diocese of Manchester agrees to submit to an annual audit to be performed by the office of the attorney general regarding compliance by the Diocese of Manchester with the terms of this agreement and diocesan policies. The audit may include, without limitation, the inspection of records and the interview of diocesan personnel." The attorney general's office was prepared to start the audit in December 2003, but the diocese objected, protesting the cost and arguing that the audit as the state envisioned it would violate the church's constitutional right to religious freedom. A protracted legal battle ensued, with Conboy finding in favor of the state in March 2005 on the nature of the audit. Although the audited party typically pays for an audit, state officials said, the attorney general's office agreed to split the cost with the church because that was not specifically stated in the 2002 agreement. The state and KPMG, the firm hired to perform the audit, negotiated the terms. They agreed to four annual reviews at a total cost of $445,000, said Ann Larney, an associate attorney general who has worked on the civil side of the church agreement. The state has approved payments to KPMG through the 2008-09 budget year. Delker, the state's lead criminal investigator on the church case, said the second audit is likely to begin this summer or fall, and the third could be conducted in 2007. Only the fourth would need to be conducted after that, he said. Under the 2002 deal, both parties agreed that the attorney general's office would request a status conference on or before Dec. 31, 2007, to address whether any terms need to be revised or amended. The question on the fourth audit can be resolved then, Delker said. Arsenault was away last week and unavailable to comment for the story. Pat McGee, a diocese spokesman, and Brian Quirk, a lawyer with Preti Flaherty who represents the church, did not respond to multiple phone calls from the Monitor. An executive with KPMG said last week that his firm plans to perform four audits. Each will give the state greater insight into whether the diocese is effectively meeting the terms of the 2002 agreement; the process also raises awareness among church personnel, parishioners and the general public and makes it clear to the diocese what areas need improvement, said Darren Donovan, who works in KPMG's Boston office. "Certainly, our expectation is that we're going to do four. Four is good,"said Donovan, adding that the figure allows for an effective review but also recognizes the limitations of the state and church budgets. "It's a sufficient period of time to try to, in my opinion, accomplish a lot of what the spirit of the agreement hopes to accomplish." Each audit is designed to evaluate the Catholic church in New Hampshire from "top to bottom (and) all four corners" to gauge compliance, Donovan said. In her ruling last year, Conboy said the second audit could also include a 60-question survey of 2,000 diocese employees and parishioners to gauge how well people understand the church's new policies. But all four audits will include interviews with selected diocesan and parish personnel and reviews of record-keeping, as the first one did. Because audits involve sampling, each successive audit is likely to pay particular attention to deficiencies identified by earlier evaluations, he said. "It would not take a rocket scientist to figure out, 'Hey, if we didn't do well in this area before, they'll probably come back to see if we fixed it,'" Donovan said. "The purpose of this audit (is) to raise awareness and improvement: 'We've got to improve, because the auditors are coming back.'" At their respective press conferences in late March, Ayotte and Arsenault interpreted the first audit differently. Ayotte pointed to a variety of flaws KPMG found in the diocese's attempts to honor the agreement, including a failure to perform criminal background checks on all personnel who work with children and a disconnect between diocesan administrators and parish priests, employees and volunteers. She gave the church 30 days to come up with a plan for improvement or risk court action. (The church has until April 26 to respond, Delker said.) Arsenault focused on Ayotte's brief praise for the diocese. He questioned the accuracy of the audit and cited accomplishments, including the training of about 9,000 church employees and volunteers and the absence of credible allegations of new abuse since the 2002 agreement. He also said the diocese had recently hired a compliance coordinator to facilitate the implementation of diocesan abuse policies at the parish and school level. Arsenault declined to name the new coordinator because the employee had just started working and the audit had attracted considerable attention. He told the Monitor an announcement would follow from the diocese in the first week of April, though the church has made no announcement yet.
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