UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

[audit report]

Joshua J. McElwee | Jun. 18, 2013

Two former leaders of the lay group set up by the U.S. bishops in 2002 to monitor the church’s sex abuse policies nationwide have said questions remain over how religious orders are being audited for their adherence to those policies.

The comments of the leaders came in interviews with NCR Monday before the release of a wide-ranging audit Tuesday, which concluded that the province of one order acted inadequately in responding to sex abuse allegations over a period of eight decades.

That province, the report concluded, placed the needs of priest-abusers above their lay victims and gave deference to lawyers who “re-victimized” those victims in an attempt to protect the clerics from costly lawsuits.

One of the former leaders of the U.S. bishops’ lay group to monitor sex abuse policies, Judge Michael Merz, said…