Efforts by Catholic bishops to fight clergy sex abuse not widely known
Washington (CNS) - Mark Chopko said he gets the same question about clergy sex abuse of minors over and over these days - in phone calls, in e-mails and from people who simply stop him on the street because they recognize him from television - "Why haven’t the bishops done anything?
Chopko, who has worked with bishops nationwide on the issue for 20 years as general counsel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said there is a whole library of resources, expert reports and information built up over that time in the bishops’ efforts to deal with clergy sex abuse. "Unfortun-ately, it’s a secret to many Catholics, and I don’t know why that is.
"I’ve been at this since the Gilbert Gauthe case," he said, referring to the first nationally publicized case of priestly pedophilia, a Louisiana priest suspended in 1983 for molesting small boys and sentenced to 20 years in prison for his crimes in 1985. The case led to more than a dozen lawsuits against the church and financial settlements with victims that totaled several million dollars.
It also marked the start of a national effort by the bishops to prevent and respond to sexual abuse of children, especially within the church.
In an interview with Catholic News Service, Chopko highlighted some of the bishops’ efforts -starting with discussion sessions with experts at national meetings in the 1980s. Those efforts included the first written policies in many dioceses in the ‘80s and the adoption of five core principles in 1992 as the framework for all such policies - after which many dioceses revised their policies and procedures to make them more effective.
In 1993, the bishops formed an Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse. Over the next four years, the committee developed and discussed with the bishops extensive resources for all dioceses on everything from assisting victims and families therapeutically and pastorally to abuse prevention programs, from initial handling and investigation of allegations to removal, evaluation and treatment of priests found to have engaged in misconduct. It covered issues of insurance and civil and church law, psychological testing and screening of priesthood candidates, screening and training of church employees and volunteers. It recommended model outlines for comprehensive diocesan policies and procedures, with guidance on issues to address in adapting them to local circumstances, such as different levels of expertise and personnel between a small, rural diocese and a large urban archdiocese.
In 1994, when the committee asked dioceses to send in their existing policies, 178 of the 188 dioceses responded. Of those, 157 submitted policies, 13 said they did not have a written policy, and eight said they were working on a policy. The committee noted that many of the policies submitted were already "second generation" - recent revisions of policies originally developed in the 1990s.
Chopko said he is not aware of a single diocese that today does not have a written policy in place. "The thing that remains a mystery to me," he said, "is why people have allowed themselves to be persuaded by the secular media that the bishops have done nothing. Nothing by way of personnel policies, which they have. By way of screening candidates for orders, which they’ve done. By way of conducting background checks on people who have contact with children, which they’ve done. By way of training and education, especially for people who have contact with children like school volunteers, CYO coaches, youth ministers, which they have done.
"People seem to have let themselves be persuaded by the secular media that the bishops have been asleep at the switch," he said.
"The other thing that amazes me," he added, "is that there’s no sense of time in the reporting of these stories today." He cited several recent stories and op-ed columns on the topic, in which he said, "you get the sense that they’re writing about incidents that happened yesterday."
In the 1980s, the people who came forward in Louisiana were complaining about what was then an ongoing series of events, Chopko said. Father Gauthe was molesting their children at that time.
Most of those coming forward in Boston in the late 1990s and currently, however, "are reporting things that happened 20, 30 years ago," he said. ‘They’re not reporting things that happened yesterday, but the news reports create the impression - in the minds of the people that this (failure in the institutional response of the church) is something happening right now in our country, and it’s not," Chopko said. "It’s not fair to the people, because the people are being deceived."
Today, he said, a person who comes in the door with an allegation "will be listened to, appreciated and responded to by skilled people, the complaint will he evaluated, if something needs to he reported it will be reported, the proper authorities will be contacted, and the whole pastoral outreach to that person, to the parish, to the community will be undertaken by the diocese.
‘That’s not the way things were done 20 years ago," he added. "This is by and large the result of the hard work, of individual bishops and the bishops collectively, that has made this a much different church than it was 20 years ago. They ought not to be focusing on the deeds of the past to judge what’s wrong with the present."
When an allegation is made
In 1992 the U.S. Bishops laid out five principles dioceses should follow when an allegation of sexual abuse is made against a priest:
Source: U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1992.