Church report provides lesson on transparency, The Oklahoman (October 13, 2019)

With its approach to determining which of its priests may have committed sexual abuse, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City impressed even a group that’s been one of the Catholic Church’s most vocal critics throughout the clergy abuse scandal. There's a lesson to be learned here.

Zach Hiner, executive director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said the archdiocese’s report “goes into much greater detail than most other reports commissioned by church officials.”

“Notably, it is one of few that goes into detail about crucial information which church officials often leave off their own reports: when were allegations received, and what actions church officials took in response,” Hiner said.

Credit for this forthrightness goes to Archbishop Paul Coakley, who was installed in 2011. Coakley ordered the review to be conducted by an independent law firm, McAfee & Taft, and for the firm be given access to all archdiocese records going back to 1960.

In a letter to the faithful attached to the Oct. 3 release of the report, Coakley explained that given how the clergy sex abuse scandal can diminish trust in priests and religious, “a new level of transparency and accountability is required” to demonstrate his office’s seriousness about creating and maintaining safe environments.

In advance of the report’s release, some, including the former head of SNAP, criticized the fact that a law firm was conducting the investigation, instead of law enforcement. They also noted McAfee & Taft had a longtime relationship with the archdiocese, and that a partner at the firm is the son of the archdiocese’s chancellor.

The archdiocese said it believed McAfee & Taft could conduct an independent probe. That proved true.

The firm produced a 77-page report that identified 11 clergy who had been credibly accused of sexually abusing minors during the past six decades, but the report also was unsparing in its criticism of the archdiocese’s record-keeping system and its leaders’ poor responses to allegations involving bad priests.

Catholics interviewed last weekend by The Oklahoman’s religion editor, Carla Hinton, applauded the report’s thoroughness and independence. The president of a group called Bishop Accountability called it “a good report. Give credit where credit is due.”

McAfee & Taft noted that it only recently received, after months of trying, 37 boxes of files that had been kept at the residence of the archdiocese’s former chancellor and her husband, a former general counsel for the archdiocese. And, a review is underway of the files of priests who served in the archdiocese prior to 1960.

Thus, more unwelcome news may be coming. But getting that news from an independent source and handling it transparently is vital to the Church’s work of eradicating sexual abuse and restoring trust. Other organizations, secular and nonsecular alike, that face sexual abuse allegations might want to consider following the archdiocese’s example.