Bishops Continue Ban on Abusive Priests

CHICAGO – America’s Roman Catholic bishops have voted overwhelmingly to continue permanently barring abusive priests from church work, despite deep misgivings about the policy written at the height of the clergy sex abuse scandal.

Friday’s vote by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops means the American church will stick with the main points of the discipline plan it adopted in 2002 for the next five years. The Vatican is expected to approve the extension.

Some prelates believe the plan violates Catholic teaching on redemption – that any sinner can be healed – and treats every case equally no matter the severity.

Chicago Cardinal Francis George, a leader in reviewing the plan with Vatican officials, went as far as calling the ban “draconian.” But he said the penalty was necessary to restore trust in church leadership.

“Our real convictions come from the failure of oversight of priests by bishops in the past, and the concern of parents and the protection of their children,” he said.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests says the prelates cannot be trusted to enforce their own plan and condemned it as inadequate. David Clohessy, national director for the network, called anyone who disagreed “naive.”

But George said people who consider the policy weak, “should talk to the priests who have been affected by this.”

The sex abuse scandal was sparked by revelations that many bishops had moved guilty priests among parish assignments without warning parents or police. Hundreds of accused clergy have been removed from ministry in the last three years alone.

The policy, known as the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, was originally adopted with a mandate that it be reviewed.

It not only dictates how bishops should investigate abuse claims, but also outlines what steps dioceses should take to help victims and protect children. A companion document makes the discipline plan for guilty priests church law for the United States.

The bishops took up the two documents separately. The charter was approved 228-4; the second measure, called the norms, passed 229-3. Only one bishop spoke against the policy in public debate. A bishops’ committee had spent months consulting church leaders about it in private.

While the ban on offenders remains intact, bishops did approve changes to other parts of the charter. Church leaders and their critics disagree on the significance of the revisions.

The modification drawing the loudest protests concerns the National Review Board, a lay watchdog panel that the bishops created. Reformers consider the panel critical to monitoring the church.

Some former board members angered Catholic leaders by openly challenging bishops. Now, the revised policy emphasizes that the panel remains under the bishops’ authority and could someday include clergy.

Bishops also agreed to dip into an endowment fund to help pay for a multimillion-dollar study on the psychological issues behind abuse by clergy. Church leaders previously commissioned studies of abuse that found more than 11,500 molestation claims since 1950.

Abuse cases have cost the church more $1 billion since then and three U.S. dioceses have declared bankruptcy. Tens of millions of dollars in additional claims are pending.

Church leaders, weary of scandal, said they could not predict when the crisis would be resolved.

“The light is at the end of the tunnel,” said Archbishop Harry Flynn of St. Paul-Minneapolis, head of the bishops’ committee on sex abuse. “Although with sin and brokenness there is never an end.”

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On the Net:

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: http://www.usccb.org/