Columbus diocese creates task force to review handling of priest-sex abuse allegations

By Danae King
Columbus Dispatch
September 15, 2019

https://www.dispatch.com/news/20190915/columbus-diocese-creates-task-force-to-review-handling-of-priest-sex-abuse-allegations

In the six months since the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus released a list of priests whom it deemed had been “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors, it has added 14 more names and started a task force to study its policies and make recommendations to the bishop.

The task force, which was formed in May and still is being established, will have 12 to 15 members, including a parish priest and people in the fields of law enforcement, civil law, canon law and mental health. It will review all diocesan policies and procedures related to the sexual abuse of minors, Bishop Robert Brennan said.

“We want to rely on the best advice we can get,” Brennan said. “We want to involve laypeople; we want to involve a lot of people. It’s not just me sitting in a room.”

Regina Quinn, director of the diocese’s safe environment office and chairwoman of the task force, said her goal is to get all members of the task force in place this month.

Judy Jones, Midwest regional leader of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), calls the idea “typical.”

“They’ll start a task force or they’ll make a new policy,” Jones said. “They say all these things. We want to see some action.”

Brennan said, “We want to do things well,” which is why he decided to start by forming a task force instead of just making changes himself.

“I just need professionals to define it for me; I need to know exactly how these things (work). This isn’t my area of expertise,” he said.

Yet some survivors want more action.

“I think a more active approach is required,” said Ken Wilcox, who said he was he was molested as a teen by the late Monsignor Thomas Bennett while a student at St. Charles Preparatory School in Bexley. “Why reinvent the wheel? Why not look for best practices nationally and globally?”

Wilcox, 55, of Olde Towne East, said he was 17 when he was molested by Bennett in his private residence on school grounds. His case is outside the statute of limitations so he can’t sue, but in an ongoing lawsuit against the diocese, Lebanon attorney Konrad Kircher is representing another, younger former student who also said he was molested by Bennett.

>>Read more: Here are details of Columbus Diocese clergy accused of abuse

“The only way the church will do anything, or do anything right, is if they’re forced to do it. ... We’ve been trying for 30 years now,” Jones said of the Catholic Church’s slow response to decades of abuse allegations. “It’s just so hard to trust what the church does or says they will do. What’s the punishment if they don’t?”

Brennan said it’s “easy to understand how those who have suffered so greatly can feel frustrated and mistrustful.”

“I am deeply touched by their pain, and as bishop I feel the weight of the responsibility entrusted to me to ensure the Church of Columbus remains a place of healing and hope,” he said in a statement. “It is my sincere wish that this task force, along with all of our safe environment efforts, helps provide comfort and compassion to all those who have suffered and proves our commitment to work together to protect all in our community and prevent these terrible crimes.”

Since Columbus’ list of 34 clergy members was released March 1, survivors and victim advocates have pressed the diocese to add more names — as well as photos of those accused, information about when the abuse occurred and where and when each priest served locally. The list has been updated three times since then, bringing the most recent total to 48 clergy who have served in the diocese as far back as 1930. Just because an allegation has been deemed credible by the diocese, that does not mean it is proof of guilt, according to the diocese.

Brennan said he’ll review the continued demands for the release of more information.

“I’m really more concerned about our outreach to those who are suffering,” he said. ”... These are some of the bigger priorities — the processes that we have and all that.”

Outreach is one of the areas the diocese realized it needed to work on after attending a conference on the topic in May at Catholic University of America in Washington, Quinn said.

“One thing we really know we need to work on is our outreach to survivors,” she said, adding that it’s a difficult thing to do well.

“We want everybody to know that we do care, we do protect, we do want to help,” Quinn said. “As the bishop mentioned, it’s not business as usual, but we want to make the correct changes. We don’t want to make change just for the sake of making change, and we know we can always improve.”

The Catholic University conference was hosted by Spirit Fire, a national Christ-centered restorative justice organization that helps Catholic churches reach out to survivors. The conference included bishops interacting with survivors of clergy abuse, said Teresa Pitt Green.

Pitt Green and Luis A. Torres Jr. are both clergy abuse survivors as well as co-directors and co-founders of Spirit Fire. Both will serve on the task force, Pitt Green said.

>>Read more: Columbus diocese has a priest take abuse reports

Spirit Fire has worked with other groups to host listening sessions with victims, peer to peer counseling, and retreats and workshops with survivors and their family members, Pitt Green said.

“There are a lot of parties really aiming for change, and I think it’s fantastic that a diocese would invite two strong-minded survivors,” she said.

The diocese isn’t ready yet to announce other members of the task force, officials said. Brennan said the group will be made up largely of people outside of the clergy.

There is no timeline for how long the task force will take to review the diocese’s policies and procedures related to abuse allegations, Quinn said. But the group will give the bishop a report on its work once it is done and he will decide what comes next, she said.

“The idea behind the task force is to look at everything,” Brennan said. “The starting point is really our outreach to those who have suffered abuse.”

He said the goal is to be available to those who come forward. “I think we need to be more proactive,” Brennan said.

Other priorities include fostering healing among individuals and within parish communities and reviewing how the diocese receives complaints and allegations, he said.

The diocese has been criticized by survivors and victim advocates in the past because its victim assistance coordinator, Monsignor Stephan Moloney, is a priest and is responsible for taking abuse reports from victims. A Dispatch analysis found that the Diocese of Columbus is one of only three dioceses in the country that have priests taking reports, and experts and survivors have said reporting abuse to a person in the same uniform as their abuser could be traumatizing.

“We learned from the experience in other places that there are probably other ways that can possibly be more responsive to people’s needs,” Brennan said.

The task force might also help Brennan determine whether the diocese should offer support groups, retreats and other resources to survivors, as some other dioceses do, Quinn said.

“I have to see what people are looking for. ... We try to walk with people who come to us,” Brennan said. “There are human lives at stake all around. So we need to make sure that we treat this very, very seriously.”

There has been a renewed commitment of dioceses nationwide to work on their clergy sex-abuse responses since a Pennsylvania grand jury report on priest sexual abuse came out in September 2018, said Deacon Bernie Nojadera, executive director of the Secretariat for Child and Youth Protection with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. There also was an edict from Pope Francis in May calling for all clergy to report clergy abuse to church authorities.

One bishop invited other diocesan officials from around the country to do a peer review of his diocese’s policies, Nojadera said. Other officials are having monthly phone calls with other dioceses in their state, swapping best practices and encouragement, he said.

And some have victim compensation programs.

“We can’t just put up programs and say we’re done,” Nojadera said. “You’ll see all this movement across the country now.”