Review Finds Archdiocese of Chicago Needs Stronger Policies to Report ‘grooming’ Behavior That Can Lead to Child Abuse

By Elvia Malagon
Chicago Tribune
June 24, 2019

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-catholic-priest-child-sex-abuse-chicago-review-20190625-vrheq6a2ynhwrczknjdrfkmmzu-story.html

An independent review of Archdiocese of Chicago policies on child sexual abuse found that church officials needed to improve how they spot, report and discipline “boundary violations” and other behavior that could lead to abuse.

The archdiocese announced the report’s findings Monday while Cardinal Blase Cupich met with the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board to discuss the ongoing scandal of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. The archdiocese shared a summary of the report, but it did not include the full review authored by Monica Applewhite, a Texas-based expert in abuse prevention.

Applewhite found that the archdiocese needed to improve how it responds to, investigates and documents “boundary violations and other risky behavior that often precede misconduct,” according to a archdiocese statement on the review.

While such behavior is addressed in the archdiocese’s code of conduct, Applewhite said it should be a strictly enforced policy rather than an educational guideline. Her recommendations included creating more guidance for how to report such behavior, and to outline what consequences someone would face if he or she didn’t comply.

Applewhite said identifying boundary violations — such as giving special treatment to a child or allowing him or her to break a rule — is important because the abuse of children usually doesn’t happen suddenly. Instead, perpetrators often establish a relationship with the child before the abuse starts, actions sometimes referred to as grooming.

“They are going to get closer and closer to a child and then cross that boundary once they establish that relationship,” Applewhite said.

She reviewed the policies and forms used by the archdiocese and gave church officials a list of recommendations, Applewhite said. The archdiocese said officials are “working to implement her suggestions.”

The archdiocese announced in December that it had commissioned an independent review of its policies after Lisa Madigan, then the Illinois attorney general, released a preliminary report into sexual abuse of children in the church.

The Madigan report found that the number of Catholic priests who had been accused of sexual abuse against children was much higher than what was previously made public. The report said accusations of abuse had been leveled against 690 priests in Illinois, while at that time Catholic officials had publicly identified 185 clergy members with credible allegations against them.

Madigan’s successor, Kwame Raoul, is continuing to investigate abuse in the Catholic Church across the state, a spokesperson said last week.

Separately, attorneys who represent victims of sexual abuse by priests released a study in March listing about 400 priests and lay people who served in Catholic parishes or schools across the state and who had been the subject of sexual abuse claims over the course of more than a half-century. The so-called Anderson Report included any reported allegation, regardless of whether it was substantiated.

Cupich noted that the archdiocese reported every allegation of abuse to the Cook County state attorney’s office. The archdiocese turned over to the attorney general’s office thousands of documents, including those related to unsubstantiated claims of abuse.

Since Madigan’s preliminary review was made public, the archdiocese has examined its own numbers, but officials believe every allegation has been reported, the cardinal said. The archdiocese has not been told about any instances in which it failed to report the allegation of abuse, he said.

“It’s hard to know what those numbers mean,” Cupich told the editorial board.

John O’Malley, a special counsel to the archdiocese on misconduct cases, said during Monday’s meeting that he found the attorney general’s report “troubling," because it didn’t specify the time and place of alleged abuse.

“We are talking about 70-year history,” O’Malley said.

He noted that while perhaps abuse allegations were not always handled correctly, there have been vast changes through the decades in how the church investigates them.

The review by Applewhite also found that there needed to be stronger policies to screen priests coming from outside dioceses or religious orders. The review also suggested strengthening support for priests, such as providing a mentor a priest could talk to before something develops into a problem.

But Larry Antonsen, a Chicago leader of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, was skeptical there would be change after hearing about the review’s recommendations.

“It just sounds like more of the same,” Antonsen said by phone Monday. “Nothing has changed. They are still trying to police themselves.”

Applewhite’s review did praise the archdiocese for requiring abuse prevention education for anyone who interacts with children in Catholic schools; for a code of conduct prohibiting misconduct and boundary violations; for screening and performing background checks on seminarians and deacons; and for the church’s compassionate response to victims.

Contact: emalagon@chicagotribune.com