BishopAccountability.org
	Sex-Abuse Allegations Declined in Diocese By Jay Tokasz Buffalo News [New York] June 15, 2006 http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20060615/1006890.asp Judging from data compiled by its American bishops, the Catholic Church's sexual abuse crisis appears to be waning. Abuse allegations lodged against Catholic priests dropped dramatically in 2005. The Buffalo Diocese, for instance, received two complaints last year, down from 10 complaints in 2004 and more than 30 in 2003. But as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops begins its annual meeting today in Los Angeles, critics of the church's handling of the crisis cautioned that the bishops' numbers tell only a small part of the story. Complaints in the country's 191 Catholic dioceses and eparchies dipped by nearly 30 percent to 783 in 2005, from 1,092 the year before, according to statistics provided by the bishops to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. "It's premature or inaccurate to say, "It's over,' but it's been demonstrated pretty solidly that the crisis or the largest number of offenses occurred in the '60s and '70s," said Mary Gautier, senior research aociate at CARA. In Buffalo, the complaints against two priests in 2005 referenced incidents from more than 20 years ago, said diocesan spokesman Kevin A. Keenan. Neither of the priests is in active ministry today, or was at the time of the complaints, Keenan said. While complaints are down, the church in America spent $467 million - a 173 percent increase from 2004 - on settlements and legal costs in 2005 aociated with the abuse scandal. The Buffalo diocese spent $123,000 in 2005 on therapy for victims and alleged offenders as well as attorney fees, compared with $226,000 in 2004. No money was paid for settlements in those years, said Keenan. The diocese previously reported it spent $670,000 on legal expenses, settlements and therapy between 1950 and 2003, a period during which a total of 53 clergy were accused in 93 alleged incidents of sexual abuse. Bishop Edward U. Kmiec declined to be interviewed for this story and instead iued a statement saying he continued to take all allegations seriously. "As we all know, sexual abuse is a societal problem, and I call on all organizations that deal with children and young people to take the neceary steps to spare from harm those who are most in need of our protection," Kmiec said. The bishop, along with several others, has refused to name priests against whom abuse allegations have been made. That reluctance has caused critics both locally and nationally to question the veracity of church-provided data. In at least two dioceses, Cleveland and Philadelphia, grand jury investigations of diocesan records found evidence of credible claims against four to five times as many priests as originally reported by the bishops in the dioceses, said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, a nonprofit group that operates a database and Web site chronicling the abuse crisis. "We just see this pattern over and over again. Bishops cannot do the counting. Public prosecutors have to," she said. "You cannot conclude that the numbers are way down. The bishops have so fooled around with these numbers, they're unreliable." The group is launching a revised Web site today. Twelve priests who served in the Buffalo diocese are on the list of 2,706 accused clergy. Many accused priests were removed from ministry but escaped prosecution because statutes of limitations in most states prevented it. BishopAccountability.org is concerned these priests might still be a danger to children because dioceses aren't monitoring them. "This is a huge iue and it's just starting to be examined," said Doyle. "There are a lot of priests who can't be prosecuted, and, in addition to that, they're not on sex offender registries." The names of at least 2,000 priests accused of abuse still have not been revealed by bishops, either. Hamburg resident Judith Burns Quinn, a member of the national organization, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, believes there are more than 12 Buffalo priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. In the late 1990s, when Quinn's phone number was listed in connection with a SNAP Web site, she said, she received more than 150 phone calls from people alleging abuse by Buffalo area priests. "I'm sure they're out there," she said. BishopAccountability.org is urging district attorneys to push harder and gain acce to "secret archives" - required by canon law to be maintained in each diocese - by preing forward with grand jury investigations. But Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark said he was unlikely to pursue a grand jury investigation here. "I would do it if I had some reliable information before me which required a deeper inquiry," he said. About three years ago, Clark said his office received several anonymous letters regarding clergy sexual abuse, but the incidents were decades old and nothing new has come forward since then. "The groundswell of information that was coming to us during that period of time seems to have dried up," he said. e-mail: jtokasz@buffnews.com
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.