New audit finds near-total compliance with policies on sex abuse
By Agostino Bono, Catholic News Service

Catholic News Service
Feb 18 2005

WASHINGTON (CNS) — An independent audit released Feb. 18 in
Washington reported that 96 percent of the 195 U.S. dioceses and
Eastern-rite eparchies were implementing every applicable article of
the U.S. bishops’ policies to prevent clergy sex abuse of minors as
of Dec. 31.

Despite the almost-total compliance, “continued external oversight and
evaluation (are) essential” since compliance “may improve or diminish
over time,” said the audit report for 2004 prepared by the bishops’
Office of Child and Youth Protection.

An audit “does not ensure that all offenders or potential offenders
have been appropriately removed from ministry,” it added.

The 50-page report said that in 2004 there were 1,092 new allegations
of child sex abuse made against 756 diocesan and religious priests
and deacons, with most of the alleged abuse taking place in 1965-74.
It said 73 percent of the accused, prior to the allegation, had been
removed from ministry or were dead or missing. No breakdown of priests
and deacons was given.

Half of the new allegations were against clergy who had been previously
accused. Males accounted for 78 percent of the 1,083 accusers.

During 2004, the U.S. church spent $158 million for sex abuse
related activities, with more than $106 million paid in settlements
to victims, the report said. The figures include money spent by
religious orders. When added to other published figures, the U.S.
church has now spent about $1 billion in child sex abuse related
costs since the beginning of 1950.

The statistics are contained in the 2004 annual report on the
implementation of the “Charter for the Protection of Children and
Young People”; the report was released at a press conference at
the National Press Club. The child protection office prepared the
report for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National
Review Board, appointed by the bishops to monitor compliance with
the charter. The all-lay review board approved the report before it
was sent to the USCCB.

The charter was approved by the bishops in 2002 and calls for an
annual compliance report.

“There is undoubtedly progress still to be made,” said Bishop William
S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., USCCB president, in a cover letter to
the report.

“Much of what dioceses face today is the result of past abusive
behavior — often long past — and procedures are in place to deal
with and put a stop to new instances of abuse that may be reported,”
he said.

The data on new allegations and spending came from a separately
commissioned study done by the Center for Applied Research in the
Apostolate, known as CARA and based at Georgetown University in
Washington, and incorporated into the final report by the bishops’
child protection office.

The report also includes recommendations for improving policies.
These include developing a mediation system for the resolution of
allegations and an annual report by each diocese and eparchy with
information about new allegations and costs.

This was the second year in a row that on-site audits were done in
dioceses, with much of the data based on self-reporting by church
officials. While the charter requires the child protection office to
issue annual compliance reports, it does not stipulate how to gather
the data for the report.

Other figures from the 2004 report include:

— 3,277 victims and some of their relatives received outreach services
from dioceses.

— 43 priests were laicized.

— 66 priests and two deacons were directed to lead a life of prayer
and penance.

— 56 allegations received before 2004 were judged false in 2004.

— 57 of the allegations made in 2004 were judged false.

The audit also reported major inroads in conducting background
checks of clergy, lay employees and lay volunteers coming into
regular contact with children. Important strides were also made in
implementing “safe environment” education programs to prevent abuse.
The background checks and education programs are considered crucial
to long-term efforts to prevent child sex abuse.

Some of the safe environment findings include:

— Almost 84 percent of the 34,514 diocesan priests received safe
environment education.

— More than 82 percent of the church’s 13,663 deacons took safe
environment courses.

— More than 1.4 million adults and more than 3.1 million children,
over half the minors in Catholic schools and religious education
classes, have taken safe environment courses.

— 97 percent of the 203,393 Catholic educators have taken safe
environment courses.

— 82.5 percent of the 203,343 other church employees required to
take safe environment courses have had the training.

— 73 percent of 1 million church volunteers received safe environment
training.

Background checks have been conducted on 92 percent of the 34,874
diocesan priests needing them. All 13,559 deacons subject to background
checks have been screened.

More than 97 percent of the 185,924 Catholic school educators have
had background checks. More than 85 percent of the 207,817 other
church lay employees have been screened. And almost 79 percent of
the 978,172 church volunteers have had background checks.

The report said that background screenings and evaluations also take
place for priesthood candidates in the 112 seminaries run by the
dioceses and eparchies audited.

The report is based on audits of 194 of the 195 U.S. dioceses and
eparchies conducted by the Gavin Group Inc. of Boston and on data
collected by CARA from dioceses, eparchies and religious orders.

Only the Diocese of Lincoln, Neb., did not participate in the
compliance audits. No reason was given in the report. It noted that
participation in an on-site audit was voluntary. The Lincoln Diocese
was judged noncompliant with article 8 of the charter, which calls
for participation in an audit process.

Of the 194 dioceses and eparchies audited, only seven were not
compliant with one or more of the charter’s 17 articles on Dec. 31.

This is a significant advance from the 2003 report, when 19 of the
191 dioceses and eparchies audited were not compliant with aspects
of the charter.

Compliance was judged in two steps. First was the on-site audit,
which judged the situation since the 2003 audit. Dioceses not in
compliance with aspects of the charter were given “required actions”
to remedy the situation and had until the end of the year to take
the actions. Initially, 50 dioceses received “required actions”
with 43 taking the necessary actions by the end of 2004.

The report warned, however, that compliance audits do not measure
the quality or effectiveness of the programs.

Regarding allegations and spending, CARA received responses from
181 dioceses and eparchies, representing 93 percent of the total,
and from 158 religious communities representing 71 percent of the
total U.S. male religious population.

Spending figures showed that 32 percent of the $140 million spent
by dioceses and eparchies was covered by insurance and 12 percent of
the $18 million spent by religious orders was covered by insurance.

The report said that the new allegations generally parallel the
patterns of gender and age reported in the massive “nature and scope”
study of clergy child sex abuse from 1950 to 2002 released last year
by the National Review Board.

The “nature and scope” study conducted by the John Jay College of
Criminal Justice in New York reported that 81 percent of the accusers
were males while the 2004 audit showed that 78 percent were males.
The John Jay study reported that 59 percent of the accusers were
between 10 and 14 years old when the abuse began while the 2004
figures reported that 55 percent were in the same age group.

Recommendations in the 2004 report for improving sex abuse prevention
programs include:

— Informing people if a lawyer is being used by the diocese or
eparchy to receive allegations and providing an alternative person
for people uncomfortable talking to a lawyer.

— Special outreach to clergy and religious who have been victims of
sexual abuse.

— Developing practices for monitoring priests and deacons at risk
as offenders.

The report notes that the church needs to continually develop new
prevention initiatives because full implementation of current policies
“will not ensure that no child will ever be abused again in a church
environment.”

It asks Catholics to be “unwavering in our commitment to ensuring
the accountability of all Catholic bishops of the United States to
their people in the future and to the safety of all our children.”

The seven dioceses and eparchies not in compliance on Dec. 31 all
failed to implement safe environment programs. Some also were cited
for other failures. The seven are: Armenian Catholic Exarchate of the
U.S.A. and Canada, headquartered in New York; Diocese of Burlington,
Vt.; Chaldean Eparchy of St. Peter the Apostle, headquartered in
El Cajon, Calif.; Diocese of Fresno, Calif.; Melkite Eparchy of
Newton, Mass.; Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, W. Va.; and Diocese
of Youngstown, Ohio.