By Patricia Zapor
The Tidings
March 14, 2008
http://www.the-tidings.com/2008/031408/auditside.htm
Counseling, retreats, support groups and spiritual direction are among the types of assistance U.S. dioceses have offered to victims of sexual abuse, notes a new audit report.
Such services were offered to more than 3,200 victims of abuse and their families, including 951 people who came forward since the last report, said the "2007 Annual Report on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People" released March 7 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The audit by the Gavin Group analyzed how 190 dioceses stacked up against the standards of the 17 articles of the "Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People." The 2007 audit covered a period as long as 22 months for some dioceses, as the audit program shifted to a standard fiscal year. It was released the same day as the 2007 Survey of Allegations and Costs.
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| Teresa Kettelkamp Photo by Paul Haring |
The charter and a set of norms to implement it were adopted by the U.S. bishops in 2002 amid a wave of revelations of sexual abuse by church personnel over the previous half-century and backlash over how church authorities handled those cases. The charter and the norms were updated in 2005 and 2006, respectively; they have Vatican approval.
The audit concluded that 12 dioceses that participated fell short on one or two of the articles. (Four Eastern-rite eparchies and the Diocese of Lincoln, Neb., declined to participate.) Most of the gaps in full compliance were from failing to complete training for all the groups of people involved in church ministries, primarily for children in church schools and religious education programs.
Of an estimated 5.9 million children nationwide whom dioceses anticipate putting through training, approximately 5.7 million have been trained, the audit said.
National Review Board chairman Judge Michael Merz, a federal magistrate judge in Ohio, said in a letter with the audit that the mobility of the U.S. population makes it difficult to fully comply with the requirement for "safe environment" training.
The all-lay review board and the Office of Child and Youth Protection were established by the charter to oversee compliance.
The audit and an accompanying survey of allegations and costs showed decreases in the number of new allegations raised over the previous year and large increases in the costs paid out by dioceses and religious orders in lawsuit settlements, treatment for victims and education for church personnel and children.
According to the survey conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, dioceses and religious institutes paid $615 million for legal settlements, therapy, support for offenders, attorneys' fees and other costs. In the four previous years of the survey, the highest amount paid out was $466 million in 2005.
Settlements accounted for the largest share --- $526 million. Attorneys' fees amounted to more than $60 million, and support for offenders cost $15 million. Therapy for victims added up to about $8 million, the survey said.
Teresa Kettelkamp, executive director of the U.S. bishops' Office of Child and Youth Protection, told Catholic News Service that some of the disparity between the costs of supporting offenders and providing therapy for victims is simply a matter of duration of how long the church must pay those costs.
Unless a priest is formally laicized by the Vatican, his diocese or religious order is responsible for his living expenses for life, she pointed out. That also might include the costs of continually monitoring a priest who has sexually abused someone, she said.
However, victims of abuse typically only seek counseling or other types of professional help for a limited period of time, Kettelkamp said, so those costs do not necessarily continue indefinitely, unlike the expenses of providing support for a priest.
The audit noted that one challenge for providing assistance to victims is the difficulty of finding counselors skilled in working with victims of child sexual abuse. It's also a challenge to offer consistency in treatment from one place to another, because there is no single standard of treatment protocols, it said.
The board made three recommendations that accompanied the audit, including simplifying the audit process and increasing the amount of funding for a study of the causes and contexts of the sexual abuse crisis. The study, by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and estimated to cost $2.6 million, is underfunded by almost $1 million, the review board noted.
The board also recommended changes in background evaluations of international priests who work in the United States and review for such priests the legal standards defining sexual abuse and diocesan codes of conduct.
The audits found that six of 12 credible allegations involving victims who were still minors were made against international priests, said a press release accompanying the audit report.
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