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  Plan to Change Hiring at Church Is Exemplary

St. Petersburg Times [Dunedin FL]
October 5, 2005

The pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Dunedin has apologized to his parishioners for hiring a man with a questionable past to work for the church.

It was important for Father Tom Madden to say he was sorry, and he seems filled with sincere regret about hiring William Forte early last year.

But even better than the apology is that Madden has promised to change the church's hiring procedures, an important step toward avoiding poor judgment in future hiring decisions.

Our Lady of Lourdes is enduring a public police investigation and a lot of pain among its congregants - problems that could have been avoided if the church never had hired Forte.

Forte has worked for the church since February 2004 as facilities manager, a job that included supervising teenagers who perform court-ordered community service at the church.

Two weeks ago, Forte was arrested and charged with lewd and lascivious conduct. Authorities said that last year he offered one of the teenagers he supervised $100 to perform a sex act. The boy refused, and the alleged incident did not come to light until recently.

Forte resigned his job last week as Madden was preparing to fire him. Pinellas County Sheriff's Office investigators are looking for other potential victims and have asked anyone who has information to call Detective Randall Jones at (727) 582-6200.

Madden acknowledged in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times that he knew Forte had an arrest record when he hired him. In 1992, Polk County authorities charged Forte with showing pornographic materials to six teens, serving them alcohol and paying them for sex. Forte eventually pleaded guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Madden said he believed Forte's story that the charges amounted to little and had nothing to do with sex. As the head of the church, Madden can't afford to be that trusting when making hiring decisions. After he actually read the file on the Polk County case - something he should have done before deciding whether to hire Forte - he didn't hesitate to move to fire him.

Now, "I carry the weight and pain of a lot of people's lives on my soul," Madden said.

Madden can't undo what has been done, but he doesn't want it to happen again. In the future, he said, a panel of parents and other parish members will review candidates for jobs and will participate in the hiring decisions. All churches would be smart to adopt the same approach.

Background checks should be a vital part of that process, and if anything questionable surfaces during those checks, the church should investigate.

It is a sad fact of modern life that even churches - perhaps especially churches, where vulnerable children and seniors spend a lot of time and feel there is no threat - must go to great lengths to make sure that only trustworthy people are hired.

 
 

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