In October, Lori and the local diocese invoked transparency when releasing a list of West Virginia Catholic clergy accused of abuse that omits former diocese bishop Michael J. Bransfield, even as we hear his name and detailed abuse allegations in lawsuits from our attorney general and former seminarians.

What’s more, they continue to keep hidden the now-completed report of Archbishop Lori’s investigation into Bransfield, despite calls to release it. Both the attorney general and the diocese’s current highest-ranking official, their day-to-day administrator, layman Bryan Minor, have called for its release. “Yes, my recommendation will be, that I will speak up and ask that that [report] be released ... And if it doesn’t come out, call me,” Minor said in a meeting in Bridgeport in December. Transparency requires this report be released.

As the Catholic Church repeatedly shows it cannot police itself, actions like that from the attorney general continue to prove necessary. In response to Attorney General Patrick Morrissey’s lawsuit, the diocese referred to the 2002 Dallas Charter policy protecting children, which Lori helped draft. They did not mention, however, that neither Bransfield, nor Archbishop Lori, nor any other bishop is bound to that policy document. Lori explained the exemption of bishops saying that the committee, “would limit it to priests and deacons, as the disciplining of bishops is beyond the purview of this document.” And this is the problem.

Nonetheless, Archbishop Lori is trying to champion a so-called “metropolitan model” of archbishops holding surrounding bishops accountable. Lori’s method has, thus far, consisted of keeping not just the final report, but also the names and qualifications of his investigative team hidden. His investigation into allegations of sexual abuse of young priests and seminarians didn’t even interview all of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston seminarians under Bransfield.

As for results, upon completion, the diocese said it turned up “nothing criminal,” a statement that Lori said was “a mistake” only few days later. Saying there is “nothing criminal” with Bransfield when you know that the attorney general has subpoenaed you for documents isn’t a “mistake,” it’s a lie. And when that lie is made to keep people from knowing about clerical sex abuse that you also know about, that isn’t just a lie, that is a cover-up.

Bypassing the legal system, Lori has made defrocking Bransfield, or removing him from priesthood, the worst punishment his investigation can hand down. Never mind that being a non-cleric is only considered punishment by the most severe purveyors of clericalism. The rest of us want to account for what Lori, U.S. bishops and local diocese officers continue to let pass.

I previously asked if Archbishop Lori and the Catholic Church can account for the our Church’s sins, hoping that we could and would. I still hope that we can. But, increasingly, our most powerful clerics cannot curb clerical abuse of power alone; this requires our whole church.

And lay people like the Catholic Committee of Appalachia and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests are ready to contribute. Their leaders respectively called out Bransfield’s improprieties and for a government investigation almost a year before both came to pass.

West Virginia’s Catholics and non-Catholics alike are profoundly better suited to address the protection of their own bodies, children and church from abusive clerics than clerics themselves. However, to date Archbishop Lori has not even fielded questions in a non-invitation only West Virginia venue open to the media and the public.

Archbishop Lori and decision makers of the diocese continue to chart to a “protectionist” course preventing both transparency and accountability. Please let go of an insular, false sense of innocence. Admit to and say “sorry” for your own actions, be penitent, and let the whole church help heal the Catholic Church. Please demonstrate, more than simply invoke, transparency and accountability and address the questions on which our church’s healing hinge.