http://www.nhpr.org/node/24161 [click for audio]

Links: To See the List Provided by BishopAccountability.org

[Note from BishopAccountability.org: We have transcribed the Delker inverview (see below).]

The New Hampshire Attorney General's office has released files that publicly identify 26 clergymen accused of sexual abuse.

The list comes after the close of the state's final audit of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester.

During that audit, the Church had agreed to report any other accusations to the Attorney General's office and remove those accused from their jobs.

Will Delker is a Senior Assistant Attorney General.

He describes the process to NHPR's Mark Bevis.

[Interview Transcript:

Delker: Those audits concluded in January of this year, and during the course of that audit process, the diocese as part of the agreement and their own policies and protocols, in a number of reports to our office, any time a victim came forward with information that they had been abused, our office reviewed those claims, determined whether any of them could be investigated and pursued criminally, and now that the audit process is concluded, we responded to a number of right-to-know requests under state law, which oblige us to release information when we receive a request, so we’re simply responding to those right-to-know requests at this point.

Bevis: The priests on this list, are they exonerated, are they … have you proved that their case is not to be followed, what’s their status?

Delker: Most of the individuals on the list fall into two categories. One are either priests, mostly, who were subject to the original investigation back in 2002, where there are additional allegations that were made against them between 2002 and the present. We’ve reviewed those and determined whether any could be pursued. In addition, there were a handful of instances, there were cases that were referred on to law enforcement for investigation, and in some of those cases, you know, local law enforcement determined that the cases couldn’t be pursued, either because no crime had occurred, or because, you know, the allegations may have been unsubstantiated.

Bevis: So are any of the men on this list being pursued now, the charges?

Delker: No. There are at least a couple of instances where there are cases that are still being reviewed. We did not release the names of those individuals at this point, because those matters are still under review – you know, we released documents but redacted identifying information.

Bevis: Are any of those priests still practicing?

Delker: The diocese has appropriately removed priests against whom substantiated allegations were made. And so the diocese has followed their obligations under both the agreement and the law that they remove any individual who has a founded allegation against them.

Bevis: What would you like people to do with these lists as they see them? I’m sure they’re going to get out on the web and be printed.

Delker: This is obviously a case that has generated a lot of interest in how it was investigated, and so I think it’s important to see what’s happened over the last seven years, in terms of the audit and this part of the audit process. Second, [the] policy that we had back in 2002 when we released many many thousands of pages of documents of our investigative reports was to provide as much information to the public as we could about these cases, so that they could evaluate, you know, the claims and the allegations for themselves, and … you know, in many instances, individuals who were abused have seen that other victims have come forward, and that gives them the courage to come forward and produce information, and that’s in part healing for the victims, and in part, may lead, in the future, to criminal charges against the perpetrators.]